Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark is a remake of a TV movie, but with a cast that boasts Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes and Guillermo Del Toro producing, it has high Hollywood credentials. In the original film, it was the mother who was seeing monsters – in this, however, that role has been taken by an eight-year old girl. Troy Nixey, comic book artist turned director, explains. ““I don’t want to disrespect the original movie at all, which is very, very great, but it is a little dated in that I think it would have been difficult in this day and age to have an adult say there’s monsters running around and not have someone believe them. Or at least look into it a little more. When it’s a little girl, because we introduce her and she’s a little disconnected to her father anyway, we set up the story that when she comes in, of course she’s going to be trying to get attention and whatnot. So you understand that it might be the kid making up a story. So that’s essentially the crux of why we made Sally eight.”
Nixey has definitely found the transition from comic books to films a fulfilling one, enjoying the scale of production that came with Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark. “Movies are something that I’ve always wanted to do and so working in comics and then transitioning to movies.. I mean, working on the page and then being able to take that and be able to communicate to a group of 100 or more – it was really great. I really did truly love the collaborative nature of what movies are. It was fantastic.”
Don’t Be Afraid Of The Dark is released in the UK on the 12th of August, and on the 26th in the US.
