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Remembering The 1973 TV Movie That Inspired This 2010 Guillermo del Toro Horror Hit
"We've lots of time... lots of time... all the time in the world..."
Perhaps more so than any other filmmaker working today, Guillermo del Toro isn't shy about the genre properties that shaped the visionary storytelling sensibilities he'd one day bring to Hollywood. He's a disarmingly cherubic fan boy through and through, always drawing on the films, shows, and books he grew up consuming as a bright-eyed youth in Guadalajara, Mexico.
And why not? Those formative experiences — be they happy, terrifying, or somewhere in between — are the cornerstones of any healthy imagination, especially if one hopes to pursue a profession in the creative space. Juvenile encounters with the bizarre and shocking run deep in our veins, subconsciously molding our identities at a profound level and, when we need them most, those dark influences come flooding out of the bolted-up ash pit separating the nebulous fears of childhood from the level-headed rationality of adulthood. For example: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, the made-for-television movie that scared the absolute pants off a 9-year-old Guillermo del Toro and his siblings all the way back in 1973.
"We thought the movie was the most terrifying on Earth," the Academy Award-winner behind Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water recalled during a 2011 interview with USA Today, which has since been archived. "It was something close to my heart for a very long time." The hour and 13-minute long presentation, which originally aired on ABC, made such a sizable impression, that the writer-director-producer eventually turned it into a 2010 feature film starring Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, and Bailee Madison. Produced and co-written by del Toro and directed by comic book artist Troy Nixey, the reimagined film is now streaming on Peacock.
Did you know Guillermo del Toro's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark movie was inspired by a TV movie from 1973?
Written by Nigel McKeand and directed by John Rowland, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark follows Sally Farnham (Kim Darby), a young house wife terrorized by diminutive, photosensitive goblin-esque creatures living in the sealed fireplace of her grandparents' old house. If you thought having a rodent infestation was bad, imagine a tiny swarm of raisin-headed monsters trying to claim your spirit as their own.
While the small screen movie often shows the strain of its minuscule TV budget (a boom mic can be glimpsed in one scene, several day-for-night shots are thoroughly unconvincing, and the creatures themselves are pure schlock), Rowland brilliantly manages to rise above it all, pulling off a singularly creepy piece — the likes of which you probably haven't seen before.
A lot of it comes down to Darby's convincing performance as a woman slowly losing her grip on reality. The little beings, which are never named, have quite a nasty, gremlin-like sense of humor and enjoy gaslighting their victims before dragging them down into the dark depths of their ash pit lair. By the time anyone realizes what's going on, it's too late: they've claimed another victim. Sally's growing mania is egged on by the fact that no one believes her, least of all her work-obsessed husband, Alex (Jim Hutton). Whether intentional or not, Hutton's presence recalls the classic Twilight Zone episode "And When the Sky Was Opened," in which the actor played a hapless individual acted upon by sinister forces well beyond the ordinary.
The '73 version of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark also excels in the atmosphere department. Without a proper special effects budget, Rowland cleverly makes use of visual and audio cues that effectively establish the creatures as a malevolent presence lurking around the once-inviting house. A strange green glow signifies their presence in a room and before they're ever shown on-camera, we hear the creatures converse in discordant whispers capable of raising hairs on the back of anyone's neck.
And even though it's very clear these beings are played by people in bulky suits, there is something very wrong about their desiccated, cone-shaped heads; deeply sunken eye sockets; and stocky, hair-covered bodies. In other words, they fulfill the most important requirement of creature design: looking like nothing that has ever existed and should never exist. They're truly abhorrent things and, to a child still processing the world and cognizant to keep their toes away from the edge of the bed, pure nightmare fuel.
So yes, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is something of a cheesy, yet competently constructed, paradox of high-output network filmmaking; a low-budget camp-fest that knows how to get under your skin. Any modern-day viewer can easily peer behind the curtain of artifice, certain the whole thing's a fictional ruse, while still plagued by lingering uncertainty. Is that strange skittering behind the baseboard really just a mouse?
With Halloween just around the corner, be sure to check Guillermo del Toro's contemporary reimagining of the 1973 TV movie. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010), now streaming on Peacock!
