Del Toro didn't direct Dark -- he's on board as a producer and co-writer -- but his influence is very much felt throughout, both in the film's look (the moody cinematography is strongly reminiscent of Pan's Labyrinth) and its through-a-child's-eyes presentation of the macabre. The actual director is Troy Nixey, making his feature-filmmaking debut after a lengthy career writing and illustrating comic books. (He's worked on such titles as Grendel, Batman and Trout.) Nixey brings an artist's eye to the visuals, composing well-balanced wide-screen frames that are layered with detail. And rather than recycle the shaky, jagged camerawork seen in most contemporary horror films, when he allows the camera to move, it glides smoothly through this space, directing our attention towards key pieces of information. (The effect is not unlike following the panels of a comic book.) It's clear that, in addition to Del Toro's filmography, Nixey is working under the influence of Stanley Kubrick's seminal horror classic The Shining, which made pioneering use of the then-new Steadicam technology. Dark's uncluttered visuals demonstrate a sophisticated sense of style that too many of this summer season's bigger blockbusters have lacked. It's a real movie movie, not just a grab-bag of digitally enhanced shots roughly assembled in (sometimes barely) chronological order.

It's a good thing that the film's visuals are so distinctive, because its story is just a tad too familiar. Based on a 1973 TV movie that Del Toro has often cited as one of the scariest films he watched growing up, Dark is told from the perspective of young Sally (Bailee Madison in a strong star turn), a child of divorce who leaves her mother's home in sunny Los Angeles to live with her architect father Alex (a surprisingly wooden Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes, delivering her least Katie Holmes-ish performance ever) in Blackwood Manor, the Rhode Island estate they're renovating to put back on the market. To say that Sally is having trouble adjusting to this new arrangement would be an understatement; she's barely been in the house for ten minutes before she's pleading to be sent back to her mother. But that option is out, so she devotes her time to exploring her cavernous new living space instead, eventually stumbling upon a previously-undiscovered cellar that contains what resembles an old stove covered up by an iron grate. Whispery voices -- ones that only she is able to hear -- tempt her to come closer and, over the course of several visits, eventually talk her into removing the grating altogether.

It goes without saying that this turns out to be a bad, bad move on Sally's part, as those voices turn out to belong to an army of diminutive, light-adverse creatures known as homunculi. (These beasties remain off-camera for much of the film's first half, but when we finally catch a glimpse of them, they vaguely resemble Lilliputian spider monkeys.) They immediately start making up for all the years they spent locked in the basement, destroying property (like Kim's clothes), attacking staff (like the caretaker that warns Sally away from the cellar) and, in general, getting up to no good. Naturally, Alex doesn't believe his daughter's stories of tiny creatures that only come out at night and instead blames her for many of the things that are going wrong. Kim initially agrees with him, but Sally's obvious fear convinces her to do a little independent research and, in the process, she uncovers some disturbing information about Blackwood's history -- information that confirms the girl's version of events. Now the only question that remains is whether they'll be able to convince Alex of their findings and get the hell out of Dodge before the homunculi claim what they desire most: Sally's soul.

Along with the somewhat predictable (though well-plotted and acted) story, it should be noted that Dark isn't especially scary, at least when compared to such genre classics as The Shining or even a smaller-scale ghost story like Paranormal Activity. But that's also consistent with Del Toro's specific brand of horror. Movies like Pan's Labyrinth, The Devil's Backbone and Cronos aren't out to frighten the audience into submission. Rather, they use the heightened reality inherent in the genre to tell an intensely dramatic and emotional story that's still rooted in recognizable human feelings. Dark achieves this as well to a certain extent, though the end result isn't as devastating as the gut-punch that is Pan's Labyrinth. Del Toro and his co-writer Matthew Robbins smartly anchor their narrative around Sally's fears of abandonment, which function as a larger metaphor for the strange appeal of the homunculi. After all, they can offer her a home that she'll never have to leave... even if she wanted to. In its best moments, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark resembles a modern version of an original Grimm's fairy tale, turning classic childhood fears into eerie fables that keep both adults and kids awake after the lights go out.

Take a closer look at the monsters of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and other scary but small creatures from horror films.

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