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 ovies like "They" and the recent "Darkness
Falls", and even the recent Spanish horror film "Darkness",
are the primary reasons why American horror film buffs have had to go to the
Japanese for their horror fix. With generic films like "They", which
goes for cheap Boo Scares rather than actual terror, is it any wonder Japanese
Dark Hair Ghost Stories such as "Ring"
and the excellent "Kairo"
are suddenly the "in" thing? No wonder American filmmakers are falling
over themselves to remake Japanese horror. Simply put, American horror films are
lame.
Robert Harmon's "They" continues the trend of
lameness as well as the trend of using darkness as the killer instead of the
usual masked psycho. Laura Regan ("My
Little Eye") stars as Julia, our 20-something Fair Hair Lead who must
battle ferocious little, er, insect-thingies that are, it is revealed, some sort
of inter-dimensional kidnappers. For whatever reason, the little buggers are
terrorizing young children, marking them, and then sending them back out into
the world only to return to "collect" them as adults. Why? I have no
idea whatsoever and, I suspect, neither does the movie.
The movie never explains a lot of things, like how the
inter-dimensional insects move through dimensions via the darkness. The
screenplay by Brendan Hood may have been a good read in an earlier incarnation
(which is a big leap of faith, natch), but the film that has resulted is a bust.
There are no scares here, no horror, and definitely nothing to jump at. This,
despite director Harmon's insistence that we be scared, because he keeps
throwing one Boo Scare after another at us. Gee, Robert, the sound of little
insects crawling around and making gobblely-gook noises offscreen is sure scary.
(At this point you should be able to see me rolling my eyes.)
There's a constant running theme in the background about
the movie's city suffering through blackouts, which I expect is Harmon and
Hood's attempt at convincing us that all of those silly insects and their
abilities to turn off lights may just be coincidental. I.e. maybe there aren't
any little critters rushing to and fro in the background like busy bees, but
rather our characters just imagining them. Of course all of this "maybe,
maybe not" questioning seems rather moot considering that we've just seen a
couple of victims get grabbed from behind and pulled into the darkness.
"They" is essentially a Teen Slasher, and even by
that genre's low standards the film is a complete failure. Marc Blucas ("We
Were Soldiers") plays the boyfriend that goes from trustworthy one
moment to a liability the next, while Ethan Embry ("Sweet
Home Alabama") and Dagmara Dominczyk ("Count
of Monte Cristo") plays two strangers who share a common bond with Fair
Hair Lead Julia. As expected, the establishment has no clue what's going on and
the critter attacks always seem to conveniently take place when no one except
the would-be victim is around. And as was the case in "Darkness
Falls", electricity has never proved more unreliable.
Even as a generic Teen Slasher, "They" fails to
elicit anything more than some weary sighs. The short running length is
responsible for the endless series of critter attacks, which occurs without any
sense or logic, and nearly 90% of which leads to nothing. Much, ironically, like
"They" as a movie -- 90% of it leads to nothing.
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