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Darkness (2002 film)
Encyclopedia
Darkness is a 2002 horror film
directed by Jaume Balagueró
about an American teenage girl who moves into a haunted house
with her family in the Spanish countryside. The film stars Anna Paquin
, Lena Olin
, Iain Glen
, and Fele Martínez
.
The film premiered in Spain
on October 3, 2002, and was released in theaters across the country eight days later on October 11, 2002. It was later sold to Miramax Films
for American distribution, but ended up being put on hiatus for over a year; it was eventually released in theaters in an edited, PG-13-rated cut in the United States
on December 25, 2004.
ritual resulted in the disappearance of six children, an American family has moved into a never-before inhabited house in Spain. The mother, Maria (Olin), wants to get the place in order, while the father, Mark (Glen), goes to work, and their children, teenager Regina (Paquin) and her younger brother Paul (Enquist), try to settle into their daily routines.
It helps that Mark's doctor-father, Albert Rua (Giannini) has furnished them with their residence and is nearby, especially when Mark begins to suffer from some mental breakdown attacks that periodically reoccur. Regina is not only worried about him, but also Paul who is now scared of the dark for the first time. The young boy has reason for that, however, as there seems to be some sort of supernatural force beneath his bed. Furthermore, there are instances when figures of children are seen standing in the shadow and darkness, watching the family.
As Paul becomes more scared and their father increasingly unstable, Regina eventually figures out it must have something to do with their home where the power is lost everyday. With the help of her new friend, Carlos (Martinez), the two eventually meet the man, Villalobos (Reixach), who designed the house, and learn that it was built for a supernatural ritual requiring the sacrifice of seven children (each sacrificed
by "hands that love them") to coincide with an eclipse
that only occurs every forty years. With the next one quickly approaching, and now armed with the knowledge that the earlier occult ritual needs one more death to be completed, Regina races to make sure that Paul is not the final victim.
Taking a shortcut through her grandfather Albert's house, Regina finds out that her grandfather is, in fact, a member of the cult which has been performing these satanic
rituals. Her grandfather explains that in the ritual forty years ago, there actually were seven children in the original ritual, the seventh child being none other than Regina's father, Mark. Albert did not sacrifice his son because at the last minute he realized that he did not love Mark. Waiting 40 years he has brought Mark and his family to the house with the intention of making sure Mark is sacrificed during this eclipse by "hands that love him." Armed with this knowledge, Regina races back to her home to find her father in the midst of another nervous breakdown, choking on pills as the eclipse begins. Maria tries to perform a tracheotomy
on him, but is unable to bring herself to make the cut. Regina volunteers to, but inadvertently causes his death. Since Regina genuinely loved Mark, the ritual is finally complete. The darkness then takes the form of Regina and Paul, convincing their mother to turn off the lights. The darkness kills Maria, and then takes the form of Regina's friend Carlos, who picks them up in his car. The real Carlos arrives at the house, only to be killed by the darkness. The movie ends with the fake Carlos drives Regina and Paul into a dark tunnel, where it is implied that the darkness kills Regina and Paul.
in the Garden of Eden
and of the Devil
or Satan
.
However, the Darkness as depicted in the film resembles that found in ancient Egyptian
mythology and religion - the state of chaos and formless void that existed before Creation and which constantly threatened existence thereafter. This primal darkness was embodied in the Ogdoad
and in the great serpent Apophis
; was associated with water (hence the constant rainy weather in the film); and opposed Ma'at, the Egyptian concept of Truth and Order.
on October 3, 2002, and was then given a wide release on October 11, 2002. It later was released in a number of European countries throughout 2003, and was then sold to Miramax Films
, but was shelved for a year. It was eventually released in the United States
through Miramax's Dimension Films
branch on December 25, 2004 (a strange juxtaposition from the usual holiday films that are released on Christmas
). It was given an even later release in the United Kingdom
in March 2005.
. It was released Christmas Day 2004, which was a Saturday. It came in at no. 7 that weekend on December 26 with $6.1 million (at $3,625 average per theater), which was a fairly decent turn out for the film, earning over half of its budget back after being in theaters for only 2 days. It also did financially well considering the fact that it was a horror film
being released during the holiday season. The following week it dropped down to no. 10 with $4.6 million. To date the film has made $22,036,907 at the US domestic box office, covering well over its $10 million dollar budget.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Jaume Balagueró
Jaume Balagueró
Jaume Balagueró i Bernat , is a Spanish film director widely known for his horror films.- Life :Jaume Balagueró was born in Lleida, and grew up in Barcelona. He studied communications and photography at the University of Barcelona, graduating in 1991 with a degree in Communication Sciences...
about an American teenage girl who moves into a haunted house
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
with her family in the Spanish countryside. The film stars Anna Paquin
Anna Paquin
Anna Helene Paquin is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history...
, Lena Olin
Lena Olin
Lena Maria Jonna Olin is a Swedish actress.-Early life:Olin was born the youngest of three children, in Stockholm, Sweden. She is the daughter of actress Britta Holmberg and the director Stig Olin...
, Iain Glen
Iain Glen
Iain Glen is a Scottish film and stage actor.Iain Glen was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and trained at RADA where he won the Bancroft Gold Medal. He was married to Susannah Harker from 1993 to 2004; they have one son, Finlay...
, and Fele Martínez
Fele Martínez
Fele Martínez is a Goya Award-winning Spanish actor.-Early years:Martínez was born in Alicante, Spain. A product of the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático in Madrid, he began to act and direct theater at an early age...
.
The film premiered in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
on October 3, 2002, and was released in theaters across the country eight days later on October 11, 2002. It was later sold to Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
for American distribution, but ended up being put on hiatus for over a year; it was eventually released in theaters in an edited, PG-13-rated cut in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on December 25, 2004.
Plot
Forty years after an unfinished occultOccult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ritual resulted in the disappearance of six children, an American family has moved into a never-before inhabited house in Spain. The mother, Maria (Olin), wants to get the place in order, while the father, Mark (Glen), goes to work, and their children, teenager Regina (Paquin) and her younger brother Paul (Enquist), try to settle into their daily routines.
It helps that Mark's doctor-father, Albert Rua (Giannini) has furnished them with their residence and is nearby, especially when Mark begins to suffer from some mental breakdown attacks that periodically reoccur. Regina is not only worried about him, but also Paul who is now scared of the dark for the first time. The young boy has reason for that, however, as there seems to be some sort of supernatural force beneath his bed. Furthermore, there are instances when figures of children are seen standing in the shadow and darkness, watching the family.
As Paul becomes more scared and their father increasingly unstable, Regina eventually figures out it must have something to do with their home where the power is lost everyday. With the help of her new friend, Carlos (Martinez), the two eventually meet the man, Villalobos (Reixach), who designed the house, and learn that it was built for a supernatural ritual requiring the sacrifice of seven children (each sacrificed
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
by "hands that love them") to coincide with an eclipse
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer...
that only occurs every forty years. With the next one quickly approaching, and now armed with the knowledge that the earlier occult ritual needs one more death to be completed, Regina races to make sure that Paul is not the final victim.
Taking a shortcut through her grandfather Albert's house, Regina finds out that her grandfather is, in fact, a member of the cult which has been performing these satanic
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
rituals. Her grandfather explains that in the ritual forty years ago, there actually were seven children in the original ritual, the seventh child being none other than Regina's father, Mark. Albert did not sacrifice his son because at the last minute he realized that he did not love Mark. Waiting 40 years he has brought Mark and his family to the house with the intention of making sure Mark is sacrificed during this eclipse by "hands that love him." Armed with this knowledge, Regina races back to her home to find her father in the midst of another nervous breakdown, choking on pills as the eclipse begins. Maria tries to perform a tracheotomy
Tracheotomy
Among the oldest described surgical procedures, tracheotomy consists of making an incision on the anterior aspect of the neck and opening a direct airway through an incision in the trachea...
on him, but is unable to bring herself to make the cut. Regina volunteers to, but inadvertently causes his death. Since Regina genuinely loved Mark, the ritual is finally complete. The darkness then takes the form of Regina and Paul, convincing their mother to turn off the lights. The darkness kills Maria, and then takes the form of Regina's friend Carlos, who picks them up in his car. The real Carlos arrives at the house, only to be killed by the darkness. The movie ends with the fake Carlos drives Regina and Paul into a dark tunnel, where it is implied that the darkness kills Regina and Paul.
Cast
- Anna PaquinAnna PaquinAnna Helene Paquin is a Canadian-born New Zealand actress. Paquin's first critically successful film was The Piano, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1994 at the age of 11 – the second youngest winner in history...
– Regina - Lena OlinLena OlinLena Maria Jonna Olin is a Swedish actress.-Early life:Olin was born the youngest of three children, in Stockholm, Sweden. She is the daughter of actress Britta Holmberg and the director Stig Olin...
– Maria - Iain GlenIain GlenIain Glen is a Scottish film and stage actor.Iain Glen was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and trained at RADA where he won the Bancroft Gold Medal. He was married to Susannah Harker from 1993 to 2004; they have one son, Finlay...
– Mark - Giancarlo GianniniGiancarlo GianniniGiancarlo Giannini is an Italian actor and dubber.Giannini was born La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. He studied at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica in Rome, and made his film debut in a small part in Fango sulla metropoli in 1965...
– Albert Rua - Fele MartínezFele MartínezFele Martínez is a Goya Award-winning Spanish actor.-Early years:Martínez was born in Alicante, Spain. A product of the Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático in Madrid, he began to act and direct theater at an early age...
– Carlos - Stephan Enquist – Paul
- Fermin Reixach – Villalobos
- David MartíDavid MartíDavid Martí is an actor and makeup specialist. He was one of 115 people invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2007.-External links:...
– Man Sleeping on Bus (uncredited)
Influences and themes
In the film, the Darkness is presented as an evil, all-encompassing force that is released after the completion of a ritual (the murder of seven children by a loved one). The association of the Darkness with lies, malevolence and evil in the film echoes the Jewish and Christian visions of the serpentSerpent (Bible)
Serpent is the term used to translate a variety of words in the Hebrew bible, the most common being , , the generic word for "snake"....
in the Garden of Eden
Garden of Eden
The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...
and of the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
or Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
.
However, the Darkness as depicted in the film resembles that found in ancient Egyptian
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
mythology and religion - the state of chaos and formless void that existed before Creation and which constantly threatened existence thereafter. This primal darkness was embodied in the Ogdoad
Ogdoad
In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad were eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis during what is called the Old Kingdom, the third through sixth dynasties, dated between 2686 to 2134 BC...
and in the great serpent Apophis
Apophis
Apophis may refer to:* Apep, an Ancient Egyptian mythological demon, in Greek known as Apophis* Apepi , a Hyksos pharaoh of Lower Egypt* 99942 Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid...
; was associated with water (hence the constant rainy weather in the film); and opposed Ma'at, the Egyptian concept of Truth and Order.
Release information
The film premiered in SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
on October 3, 2002, and was then given a wide release on October 11, 2002. It later was released in a number of European countries throughout 2003, and was then sold to Miramax Films
Miramax Films
Miramax Films is an American entertainment company known for distributing independent and foreign films. For its first 14 years the company was privately owned by its founders, Bob and Harvey Weinstein...
, but was shelved for a year. It was eventually released in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
through Miramax's Dimension Films
Dimension Films
Dimension Films is a motion picture unit currently a part of The Weinstein Company. It was formerly used as Bob Weinstein's label within Miramax Films, to produce and release genre films...
branch on December 25, 2004 (a strange juxtaposition from the usual holiday films that are released on Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
). It was given an even later release in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in March 2005.
Box office
Despite many negative reviews and very little promotion, Darkness still did moderately well at the US box officeBox office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
. It was released Christmas Day 2004, which was a Saturday. It came in at no. 7 that weekend on December 26 with $6.1 million (at $3,625 average per theater), which was a fairly decent turn out for the film, earning over half of its budget back after being in theaters for only 2 days. It also did financially well considering the fact that it was a horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
being released during the holiday season. The following week it dropped down to no. 10 with $4.6 million. To date the film has made $22,036,907 at the US domestic box office, covering well over its $10 million dollar budget.