This movie was “trending” on Netflix. God knows how these trends get started. Released in 2016, The Darkness tells the story of an autistic kid who falls through a hole in the ground while visiting Grand Canyon National Park with his family. While down in the hole, he finds five ancient Navajo stones which look like they’re available for sale at any southwestern knick-knack outlet. The kid, likely aware of the gouging he’d receive at the gift shop, grabs the free stones from the cave and returns to his family, taking some evil spirits along for the ride. What follows is a sort of “ghost to-do list” with some lightly penciled in family drama. These ghosts – and writers – try a bit of everything: turning on faucets, inducing children to burn things, irritating neighborhood pets, cave painting the bathroom – which given certain circumstances and design schemes could actually be helpful – appearing as animals, appearing as shadowy humanoids, but what they excel at is leaving sooty handprints all over the place. They love doing this, and hey, I’m sure it’s fun, but it’s not at all scary. The only thing I like about this movie is that it continues the Paul Reiser renaissance which I fully support.
Kevin Bacon has been doing his damn job for over 40 years. How dare I, some diaper-wearing apricot from the mailroom, come into his office and tell him he’s had an off day! He’s been making movies since before I was an itch on my father’s nutsack! He certainly doesn’t have anything left to prove, and he’s well within his rights to make this late-career pivot towards horror if he wants to. I’m fine with it. Stir of Echoes was good, but The Darkness, oh The Darkness.
If you look at Kevin Bacon’s top ten rated films on IMDb, it’s like looking at a highlight reel for the last five decades. From the 70’s you’ve got Animal House, and 80’s there’s Planes, Trains, and Automobiles although I don’t really remember him in that movie. The 90’s features A Few Good Men, Sleepers, and Apollo 13, great decade for movies, the 90’s. There’s Mystic River and Frost/Nixon from the 10’s, and X-Men: First Class from the teens. For those of you who are wondering, Tremors and Footloose are numbers 18 and 33, shamefully. Then waaay down at the bottom, past R.I.P.D, past The Air Up There, is The Darkness at number 73. The only movie with a lower rating is The Mod Squad, but Kevin Bacon isn’t actually listed among the cast so it’s hard to know if he was really involved without watching it which I’m definitely not going to do. IMDb also has a credit for Kevin Bacon from 7 years before he was born so it looks like IMDb has some Db work to do.
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, The Darkness has a rating of 3% with no mention of The Mod Squad. It’s just the bottom, and it’s craning its neck to see the next worst, 2008’s The Air I Breathe at 10%. For context, Battlefield Earth and cross-dressing Adam Sandler romp Jack and Jill both share a 3% rating on RT, putting The Darkness right there with some of the worst films in the history of films. So to answer our question, not only is The Darkness the worst Kevin Bacon movie of all time, it’s one of the worst movies of all time. Maybe someday it will find an audience during bad movie nights across America, but if you’re looking for a good movie night, or even an OK movie night, steer clear of this one. And Kevin, I’ll see you in You Should Have Left and whatever the hell else you want. You’ve earned it.
Supplemental reading from Horrornews.net
criticalmush.com 