The Dark

The Dark is a nice little film which hasn't done as well as it deserves. The girls aren't supposed to resemble each other. Its just that what "the sea" claims, it returns. Though in this case not the same 13 year old girl. And in any case, not the same as she was before she was "returned." To me it fits into a sub-category of the horror genre in which the "rules" are patently unfair. Most Anglo-American horror descends from morality tales in which the unjust reap their deserts. Or, in the case of apparent innocents, like the family in Poltergeist, the consequences of iniquities they have unwittingly been part of. In a strange way, these kinds of stories are saying, "play by the rules, be kind, and you won't come to harm." But outside of this tradition, there are stories in which bad things happen to good people because "the rules" are unfair. The game is rigged. The Dark is based on a Welsh concept of the afterlife. And Celtic folklore is filled with stories in which, once you've encountered the uncanny, you're f**ked; that their "gifts" are as awful as their curses. And is no undoing it once its started. This leaves those who were expecting a morality-tale unsatisfied. But it is common to folklore and Horror outside of the English tradition and its descendants. Dante