Dark Touch, a French/Irish/Swedish horror film set in the Irish countryside, is an ugly, nasty movie, and I feel like a worse person for having watched it. I don’t say that lightly, because watching Dark Touch was one of the most uncomfortable, unpleasant experiences I’ve had at the movies. While I obviously suspect that was the intention, that does not mean the film succeeds. In fact, it’s unpleasant because of how blatantly ugly and cheap it is, not become of any filmmaking skill.
Dark Touch opens with an eleven year-old girl named Neve (Marie Missy Keating, who will likely need years of therapy after starring in this) running through a forest during a rainstorm while screaming her head off. She runs to the house of family friends Nat (Marcella Plunkett) and Lucas (Padraic Delaney). Her parents arrive and explain that Neve is terrified of the new house they moved to and claims that her furniture moves on its own around the room. Naturally they all think this is nonsense, but one night the furniture comes alive and kills Neve’s parents. While she hides, Neve also accidentally crushes her baby brother to death (which, by the way, is hardly addressed again). Nat and Lucas agree to take care of Neve while the police investigate what they suspect is a vicious, murderous gang. However, strange things begin to happen in Nat and Lucas’ house, and it is soon revealed that it is Neve herself who causes it whenever she become emotionally upset (think the Rainmaker in Looper). However, Neve’s parents have left her too emotionally scarred at her core to know the difference between kindness and cruelness, so everyone is in for a terrible experience… including the audience.
Had this been made in the 1980s or early 1990s I have no doubt that plot would be played as a horror comedy. I mean, killer furniture? But writer/director Marina de Van takes a very serious route with the material, rooting Neve’s instability in physical and emotional child abuse. We don’t find out the exact details of what Neve’s parents did to her, but Neve is terrified of belts, shoes, and baths — and adults who assure her that she should trust them. I’m sure you can figure out the rest.
This movie reaches a level of stupidity that is insulting, mostly because like other bad horror films the characters are incredibly stupid. For example, Neve is covered in bruises and cigarette burns — and apparently has been for much of her life — and Nat and Lucas simply shrug and say that her parents told them “she was a bit of a daredevil.” Neither the police nor Neve’s school psychologist, Tanya (Charlotte Flyvholm), seem to think there is anything particularly worrisome about all these horrible marks. Those signs of abuse should make the audience feel for Neve, but her depressing character arc makes that impossible. More stupid moments come when objects start flying around Nat and Lucas’ house and they seem to think its a normal occurrence, as if Ireland had just recently become prone to earthquakes. About an hour into the film Tanya nonchalantly says, “Well, there are a lot of unanswered questions here.” After making this profound point (no shit, Sherlock) she immediately disappears from the narrative, leaving her storyline unresolved and yet another one of those unanswered questions. On top of that, this line is delivered like most of the lines in this film — terribly. It would be easy to pick on the children for being bad actors, but in a lot of ways they outshine the adults, probably because the material is so shoddy.
In addition, the film is awfully grating. I’d estimate about 20 minutes of Dark Touch consists of children screaming or crying. In that sense I think the movie is terribly exploitative and goes for very vulgar attempts to scare. After all, child abuse is a horrible thing, and I expect Marina de Van went that route with Dark Touch in order to provoke a strong reaction out of the audience. However, I doubt the reaction that I had was the type of reaction she was hoping for. Instead of effective or horrific it’s repulsive in the sense that this serious issue is being used as a plot point in an awful horror movie. It’s not entertaining or frightening, and it’s too uncomfortable to even laugh at its poor quality — in a word, it’s shameless.
RATING: One of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve ever had in a theater (0.5/10 ).
Tribeca Film Festival 2013 Screenings:
April 18 8:30 PM Clearview Cinemas Chelsea
April 19 10:00 PM AMC Loews Village 7-02
April 23 9:45 PM Clearview Cinemas Chelsea
Recent Comments