Editorials
1991’s French-British Film ‘Afraid of the Dark’ is a Genre Blind Spot Worth Seeing [Horrors Elsewhere]
Horrors Elsewhere is a recurring column that spotlights a variety of movies from all around the globe, particularly those not from the United States. Fears may not always be universal, but one thing is for sure — a scream is understood, always and everywhere.
While other children’s fears are innocuous and fleeting, the worries of 11-year-old Lucas (Ben Keyworth) are more profound in Afraid of the Dark. Mark Peploe’s 1991 psychological thriller positions itself as a deep study of its imaginative protagonist, but viewers can’t always trust everything they see through the eyes of young Lucas.
Peploe’s directorial debut is an unsung achievement in adolescent horror. When communicating Lucas’ childhood anxieties, Afraid of the Dark thoroughly shows more than tells. The slow realization of how dangerous the world truly is, has an insidious effect on the main character’s mental state and actions. The story unfolds in a cheerless section of London beset by vicious attacks on blind women in broad daylight. Lucas hears of each new assault firsthand seeing as his father Frank (James Fox) is a police officer directly working on the unsolved case. Along with everyone else in the neighborhood, Lucas is restless as he waits for the culprit to strike again.
Lucas feels the touch of death closing in on him each and every day. From waking up to the sight of a cemetery outside his bedroom window, to witnessing the slasher’s wanton crimes up close and personal, Lucas is routinely reminded of his own mortality. He wanders from place to place alone on most days, taking in the sights as if they were his last. As of late, though, his mother Miriam (Fanny Ardant) has brought him to a center for blind people like herself. At her request, Lucas escorts the recently engaged Rose (Clare Holman) around town. He notices the lascivious way various men stare at her, but with her being blind, Rose is unaware. It’s her innocence that strikes a chord with Lucas; he himself doesn’t ever want to be that susceptible.
Lucas’ desire to not be vulnerable to society’s ills and dangers eventually causes the movie to flip its entire script. Permitting massive spoilers from here on out, Afraid of the Dark undoes its first half following a climactic scene; Rose has gone to a photoshoot where the sketchy photographer Tony (Scott McGann) has convinced his model to pose topless. Just as Tony goes from snapping shots of his subject to slicing into her thighs with a blade, Lucas charges in and stabs the de-facto slasher’s eye with a knitting needle. Suddenly, the movie resets with the same scene from the opening; Lucas repeatedly taps his thick lenses with the red needle seen all throughout the film. However, reality has set in, and audiences learn everything up until this point has been all part of the protagonist’s vivid imagination.
The part of Lucas’ body he can no longer trust to always function is now the audience’s window into his uneasy mind. In this narrative reboot, Miriam, Rose, and the others from the center are in fact not blind; Rose is also Lucas’ older sister who is engaged to Tony, and there is no slasher running about. It’s on Rose’s wedding day she and her father discuss how Lucas requires a major eye operation. This revelation helps explain the boy’s pathological fear of blindness and the inordinate scenarios he’s conceived in his head to deal with that upsetting news.
While Lucas’ family walks on eggshells regarding the operation — they whisper among themselves how he’ll lose whatever he has left of his sight if the procedure fails — he quietly grapples with his predicament. His cognizance is indicated in his behavior and conversations. For example, in Lucas’ exchange with Tony about why he no longer likes Spider-Man, the child dismally explains the superhero “never wins” because evil always returns in one form or another. It’s a perfect display of how a child Lucas’ age would view his problem in terms he would comprehend. At last, Lucas’ most powerful strategy when working out his emotions would be his collection of intense fantasies. It’s through these wild daydreams Lucas catches a glimpse of what the future may have in store for him. This coping mechanism is empowering because he can fight something that is neither perceptible nor tangible from his standpoint. Lucas recoups his agency just as others simply expect the worst for him.
Tony may not actually be a ripper, but Lucas’ dread remains fully intact. Maybe the most upsetting manifestation of the boy’s fears is when he mistakes the neighbor’s dog and his best friend Toby for a rabid beast. Then there is Miriam, who is pregnant with her third child, going into labor at the wedding. In everyone’s haste to bring new life into the world, they trample Lucas’ glasses without nary a concern. Add on the attention Isabel receives upon her birth, it only makes sense the son might feel like he’s being replaced. Finally, his severe reaction to such paranoia is the stuff of nightmares.
Peploe and co-writer Frederick Seidel put to paper a child’s struggle with understanding his own ailment. Ben Keyworth’s handling of the material is also crucial to the overall story; he conveys despondency and regret with a kind of precision beyond his years. Children in other genre movies are frequently written to behave like adults in young bodies, but Lucas is the opposite. Whether it be dreaming up an enemy he can defeat, or viewing the world in strictly black and white with no grays, Lucas is unequivocally a child rather than childlike. It’s a performance that should not be overlooked.
Afraid of the Dark is a unique dissection of youthful fear influenced by classic giallo movies. Its risks are big and bold, but they may not gel with everyone; expectations can’t be metered ahead of time without giving away the midway twist. Even so, there’s more to this challenging and layered thriller than meets the eye.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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