BUFFY: 4.04 ‘FEAR, ITSELF’

Short episode promo

WRITER: David Fury
DIRECTOR: Tucker Gates

WHAT’S THE SITCH?

It’s Halloween and one of the frat houses is throwing a Scary House Halloween party. Said house has been prepared to be everything innocently spooky and scary for the soon to arrive party guests. But unbeknownst to the frat house boys, a symbol they found in a book and then painted on to the floor for creepy effect is really a mystical symbol designed to bring forth the terrible fear demon Gachnar. All the symbol needs to start its work is some human blood, which Oz accidentally supplies after cutting himself while fixing the party’s sound system. Later on that night, Buffy, Willow, Oz and Xander arrive at the frat house ready for some silly, creepy seasonal frolics…only to find it seemingly deserted. After venturing inside, the house then traps them, separates them, and begins to subject each of them to their deepest personal fears…

WHAT’S THE SITCH BENEATH THE SITCH?

Well, the whole thing is really just a big ol’ Halloween fest. An excuse to have some creepy good fun. Thematically though we are in fairly obvious territory: facing and conquering your fears, not letting them control you. The gang’s fears have changed now that they’ve grown older. Back in season one’s ‘Nightmares’ Willow’s biggest fear was being on stage. Now it is one of her spells going wrong and turning on her. Xander’s fear was clowns. Now it is being invisible to his friends. Of course Oz wasn’t in season one but his fear is of losing control and turning in to a werewolf and hurting Willow. Meanwhile Buffy’s fear is no longer rejection by her father. Now it is that no matter what she does, how hard she fights, she won’t be able to save people. As the gang has matured so have their fears.

WHO’S GIVING US THE WIGGINS THIS WEEK?

A scary house which includes knife-wielding corpses, transforming werewolves, vampires buried in the basement, bats, spiders, eyeballs and all sorts of creepy stuff. Oh, and Gachnar, the fear demon. And Anya dressed as a bunny.

WHY IT ROCKS

The story. David Fury wrote a fun rollercoaster spooky house tale for Halloween that has decent thematic depth and is all about the characters.

Giles fully embracing the spirit of Halloween…in a sombrero. And Buffy’s reaction.

Gleeful Giles with his toy Frankenstein’s Monster. “It’s alive!”

Anya and the thing that scares her the most: bunnies.

Anya in her giant bunny costume. So cute. So funny.

Giles with a chainsaw.

Buffy as Little Red Riding Hood. She looks real cute in her blood red cloak. It harkens back to season three’s ‘Helpless’ where we last saw her wearing a red hooded cloak whilst fleeing from psycho vampire Zachary Kralik.

Xander dressed in a tux just in case they all get turned in to their costumes again ala season two’s ‘Halloween’. If they do, then Xander wants to be James Bond. Buffy thinks he’ll more likely be a waiter.

Oz’s Halloween costume. Willow has come as Joan of Arc as she appreciates Joan’s close relationship with God. When the gang ask a normally dressed Oz what he’s come as, Oz silently reveals a small nametag on his jacket. It reads simply ‘God’. Heh.

The ‘big’ reveal of Gachnar.

WHY IT SUCKS

It’s a standalone episode and a token Halloween episode so doesn’t really add anything to the season. Still, it’s a lot of fun.

IT’S BUFFTASTIC

It’s a toss up between Anya in bunny costume and the hilarious final reveal.

DIALOGUE TO DIE FOR

Xander: “Well, that's the funny thing about me. I tend to hear the actual words people say and accept them at face value.”
Anya: “That's stupid!”
Xander: “I accept that.”

Buffy: “Thank the Lord.”
Oz: “You're welcome.”

Buffy: "Conjuring? Will, let's be realistic here, okay? Your basic spells are usually only about 50-50."
Willow (angrily): "Oh yeah? Well... so's your face!"
Buffy: "What?"

Xander (taunting the fear demon in a silly voice): "Who's the little fear demon? Come on, who's the little fear demon?"
Giles: "Don't taunt the fear demon."
Xander (worried now): "Why? Can he hurt me?"
Giles: "No, it's just... tacky."

Giles (annoyed, suddenly realising what the caption under the drawing of Gachnar says): “Actual size.”

HOW MANY STAKES?

A fearful 4 (out of 5)

BUFFY: 4.03 ‘THE HARSH LIGHT OF DAY’

Spike v Buffy smackdown

WRITER: Jane Espenson
DIRECTOR: James A. Contner

WHAT’S THE SITCH?

Spike is back in Sunnydale. He’s searching for the mythical Gem of Amara - a precious stone that can, according to legend, render any vampire who wears it unkillable. The gang finds out and Buffy sets out to find Spike and stop him before he can find the Gem and become invulnerable. But Spike hasn’t come back alone. Drusilla is AWOL still. So instead Spike has now hooked up with…Harmony! Um, Harmony? Cordy’s one time airhead best friend? Yes indeed. It was a small bit in the ‘Graduation Day part 2’ end battle but Harm got bit by a vamp and is now a denizen of the night, though she is still just as vapid and airheaded as always. And now, for some bizarre reason, Spike has hooked up with her, even though she is steadily driving him nuts with her continual inane chatter and constant demands. Meanwhile, Buffy has hooked up with smooth and seemingly sensitive fellow student Parker Abrams. She spends the night with the guy after they go to a party, only for him to latterly cruelly discard her as nothing more than a bit of fun. Poor Buff is confused and emotionally wounded by this rejection and just doesn’t understand. At the same time, ex-vengeance demon and now cute human girl Anya confronts Xander, saying she wants to have sex with him to try and get him out of her head. Being a guy and apparently unable to resist Anya’s, um, charms, Xander agrees and they do indeed do the deed. But afterwards things don’t quite work out as Anya had planned.

WHAT’S THE SITCH BENEATH THE SITCH?

The emotional implications of sex. Oh, and bad, bad men. We can be such a thoughtless, cruel, unfeeling bunch. Well, at least the guys in this episode of Buffy are. This is basically about emotionally vulnerable girls being ‘taken advantage of’ by predatory men. Okay, in Xander’s case that’s kinda unfair as Anya is basically doing all the predating. But Xander could see she was acting strange and was clearly confused and vulnerable, yet he still went ahead and got his jollies. Meanwhile it is obvious that Spike is with Harmony for only one reason. He clearly can’t stand her and is continually and viciously mean to her, even going so far as to try to kill her at one point. Yep, she is annoying, and a soulless demon, but even so. And then there’s Buffy. Suckered in by ‘sensitive’ sweet talker Parker. He tells her just what she wants and needs to hear, and thus gets her in to bed, getting his jollies, before then cutting her loose and moving on to the next potential conquest. The episode ends badly for the three main women of the piece with the final shot being of Buffy, Harmony and Anya all walking away in different directions, moving slowly, sadly, in to darkness.

WHO’S GIVING US THE WIGGINS THIS WEEK?

Spike and nasty Parker.

WHY IT ROCKS

Jane Espenson. Yep, it’s a Jane Espenson script. So you’re gonna get some great character beats and some big funny amidst the drama and thematic depth. This episode has one of my all time favourite lines in Buffy. After a pouty Harmony says to Spike, “You love that tunnel more than me,” Spike replies caustically, “I love syphilis more than you!”

Spike. It’s James Marsters playing Spike. ‘nuff said.

Anya. Not only do we get the return of Spike – the best character in all of Buffy and (in my opinion) all of TV ever, but we also get the return of ex-vengeance demon Anya and her innocently direct, often horribly rude, yet always hilarious attitude. Emma Caulfield is simply brilliant. Anya rocks!

Music. There are some good tunes in this episode, especially at the party Buffy and Parker go to where for some reason the then already famous singer Biff Naked is playing.

Daylight vamp fight. The daytime showdown between a gem wearing Spike and an emotionally bruised Buffy is small scale but is still an inventive, well-staged battle. The fight blocking and stunt work is top notch.

Crossover. This story leads directly in to Angel episode 1.3 ‘In the Dark’ in which Oz brings the Gem of Amara to Angel in LA as a gift from Buffy only for Spike to show up and try to get it back. Back then, before Buffy moved to UPN from season six, Angel aired directly after Buffy on the WB. Two hours of solid Buffyverse every week. Yay!

Harm’s Way. A special shout out to Mercedes McNab who returns as Harmony and has much more to do now that Harm’s joined the fang gang. She makes for a wonderfully shallow, ditzy vampire.

WHY IT SUCKS

It doesn’t. Spike returns and he is brilliant. As does Anya. My only issues are how come someone as famous as Biff Naked would be openly playing a frat party? And how does Buffy manage to wake up the next morning after a night of raucous sex looking a million dollars and with not a single hair out of place. Only on TV.

IT’S BUFFTASTIC

Xander’s explosive cranberry juice reaction when he turns around and sees Anya naked. Heh.

DIALOGUE TO DIE FOR

Buffy: “Harmony’s a vampire? She must be dying without a mirror.”

Anya: “Sometimes, in my dreams, you're all naked.”
Xander: “Really? You know, if I'm in the checkout lane at the Wal-Mart I've had the same one.”

Anya: “I like you. You're funny and you're nicely shaped, and frankly it's ludicrous to have these interlocking bodies and not... interlock. Please remove your clothing now.”
Xander: “And the amazing thing? Still more romantic than Faith.”

Harmony: “You love that tunnel more than me.”
Spike: “I love syphilis more than you.”

Oz (to Giles): “OK, either I'm borrowing all your records or I'm moving in.”

Spike (to Buffy): “So, you let Parker take a poke, eh? Didn't seem like you knew each other that well. What exactly did it take to pry apart the Slayer's dimpled knees?”

Buffy: “So what I'm wondering is: does this always happen? Sleep with a guy and he goes all evil?”

AND ANOTHER THING

Harmony's last name is Kendall. The character Sarah Michelle Gellar played on US soap All My Children was named Kendall. A little inside joke?

The album that Oz holds up at Giles' place is Loaded, the Velvet Underground's 1970 album.

James Marsters was uncredited in the original airing of this episode (he is later added to the opening credits).

HOW MANY STAKES?

This one’s a Gem (of Amara). 4.5 (out of 5)

BUFFY: 4.02 ‘LIVING CONDITIONS’

It's all super fun!

WRITER: Marti Noxon
DIRECTOR: David Grossman

WHAT’S THE SITCH?

Creepy demons turn up in Sunnydale, clearly looking for something or someone. Meanwhile Buffy is getting more and more aggravated by her relentlessly perky, neat freak, Celine Dion and Cher loving roommate Kathy. So much so that Buffy begins to suspect that Kathy is in fact evil. That she is not human, and that she must be stopped. Buffy’s friends are freaked out by this and think Buffy has gone off the deep end, so they try to convince her that Kathy is really a normal (ish) human being and not some evil hell beast that needs to be slayed. But Buffy won’t be convinced and is determined to gather the proof of Kathy’s inhumanity in order to validate her intended forthcoming slaying of her roommate.

WHAT’S THE SITCH BENEATH THE SITCH?

The metaphor is the roommate from hell. Literally. And carrying on from 4.1 ‘The Freshman’, it remains part of the whole moving out in to the world and out of your comfort zone deal. Part of doing that successfully is learning to get on with people you might not have bothered with before, to allow for people’s foibles and habits, to learn patience and compromise. This is Buffy’s first experience of living with someone outside of home. And she gets Kathy, who’s a total neat freak (whereas Buff can be a bit of a slob) and obsessed with annoyingly mundane details like keeping a log of phone calls for when the bill comes in, for labelling individual items of food etc. Plus she has habits that Buffy truly hates – closing the window at night, clipping her toenails on the bed, playing Cher’s horrendous chart botherer ‘Believe’ over and over and over and over…

WHO’S GIVING US THE WIGGINS THIS WEEK?

Yes, Kathy is annoying, and there are a couple of creepy looking demons who lurk around the place, but as has been done before and will be done again, it is actually Buffy herself who is doing the scary stuff for most of the episode.

WHY IT ROCKS

The script. Marti Noxon’s script is, to quote Kathy, “Super fun!” Watching Buff slowly start to unravel due to the extreme mental torture of having to listen to Cher’s ‘Believe’ over and over and over is most amusing. It is hilarious that Buffy’s only plausible answer as to why a human being would behave in such a way is because they are an evil soulless demon.

Kathy. Yes, she is annoying – though mostly due to her music tastes. But she actually comes across (to those of us not obsessed with her possible evilness) as a rather sweet and (overly) friendly girl. She makes the effort to hang out with Buffy and to be nice to Buffy’s friends. But as we know, Buffy is mightily territorial over such things and is often extremely possessive and defensive about her gang of pals. See what happened last year with Faith. Dagney Kerr is a cutie and she plays Kathy with energetic perkiness and an offbeat charm. Sorry Buff, I kinda liked her.

SMG unhinged. Sarah gets to do all out comedy…if rather dark and batty comedy. And she is very, very good at it. Nutty Buffy is funny.

WHY IT SUCKS

It’s perhaps just a bit too light and silly, though the metaphor of the roommate from hell is nicely played. Problem being, despite the awful music, and the ultimate reveal, I quite liked Kathy. Sorry.

IT’S BUFFTASTIC

Xander and Oz watching Buffy who has just been tied up and Xander’s nervously manic laugh when Oz suggests they go check that her bindings are tight enough.

DIALOGUE TO DIE FOR

Buffy (to Oz): "So then Kathy's like, 'It's share-time.' And I'm like, 'Oh yeah? Share this!'" (Buffy punches the air a few times.)
Oz: "So either you hit her or you did your wacky mime routine for her."
Buffy: "Well, I didn't do either, actually. But she deserved it, don't ya think?"
Oz: "Nobody deserves mime, Buffy."

Buffy: "Kathy's evil. I'm an evil fighter. It's simple. I'm gonna have to kill her."

Buffy: “And what are we if not women up to a challenge?”
Willow: “Exactly. I mean, did we not put the 'grr' in 'girl'?”

Buffy (to Willow as she leaves to patrol): “Wish me monsters.”

Buffy: “Cool. You guys can do the brain thing. I'm gonna go to class.”
Oz: “Which could also be construed as the brain thing.”
Buffy: “Not when you're minoring in Napping 101.”

Buffy: “She irons her jeans. She's evil.”

Xander: “Why couldn't Giles have shackles like any self-respecting bachelor?”

AND ANOTHER THING

Clayton Barber, who played a demon in this episode, was Angel's stunt double in the past. He was another vampire's stunt double (Frost's), in the movie Blade.

Dagney Kerr used to be a singer and dancer on cruise ships before she started acting. She went on to a recurring role on Desperate Housewives.

HOW MANY STAKES?

Do you believe in life after love? 3.5 (out of 5)

BUFFY: 4.01 ‘THE FRESHMAN’

WRITER: Joss Whedon
DIRECTOR: Joss Whedon

WHAT’S THE SITCH?

Buffy, Willow and Oz have just started college at UC Sunnydale. But while Willow is clearly in her element and Oz is being just as laconic and unfazed as ever, Buffy is feeling lost, overwhelmed and highly intimidated by her new life. Unable to find her way around the huge campus, she gets publicly humiliated by a highly obnoxious lecturer before realising that she also has to share a dorm room with one annoyingly perky neat freak of a girl with a decidedly unhealthy Cher and Celine Dion obsession. As if things weren’t bad enough, Buff soon discovers there’s a gang of vamps on campus, led by the supremely bitchy Sunday (played gloriously by Katharine Towne), who for the past eighteen years have been targeting especially vulnerable freshmen, bullying them, stealing their stuff and then killing them. Thinning the herd of the weak ones as they see it. Feeling lost and out of sorts, Buffy’s first run in with Sunday goes badly, ending with the Slayer battered and bruised and having to beat a hasty retreat. Gleefully sensing weakness, Sunday decides to target Buffy as her next victim for persecution.

WHAT’S THE SITCH BENEATH THE SITCH?

Leaving the relatively safe and known environment of school to either go to university or in to the world of work can be a massive change and culture shock. Some handle it better than others. It can be scary and confusing, often denting confidence. This is exactly what happens to Buffy. She’s left the comforting knowns of school and home life to be thrust in to what is a disorientating and intimidating environment, one to which she feels she doesn’t belong. It doesn’t help that her old support network seems to have crumbled. Willow and Oz are busy with classes and Uni life. Her mom is busy with work having turned Buffy’s bedroom in to storage. Xander is MIA on a see America road trip. And Giles, no longer officially a watcher and unemployed since the school blew up, is busy chilling out and, er, ‘entertaining’ an old friend. All of this leaves out girl feeling lost, miserable and alone, the perfect vulnerable target for nasty Sunday. And speaking of…

WHO’S GIVING US THE WIGGINS THIS WEEK?

Queen bitch vampire Sunday as played to the hilt by the excellent Katharine Towne. Her small band of vamps doesn’t really figure as they are just as bullied and browbeaten as Sunday’s human victims. It’s a shame Sunday gets staked. She would have been a great long-term addition to the show.

WHY IT ROCKS

The script. Joss writes a perfect introductory script for the new season, laying out the new environments, possible relationship shifts, and introducing new characters and mysteries that will carry through the entire year. It also balances perfectly the themes of the story with meaningful character development, plenty of pathos, bone crunching action, and lots of subtle and not so subtle comedy. A lot of Joss’s dialogue is especially wonderful here, encompassing the kind of smart, witty wordplay the show is famous for, along with quirky life observations, pop culture references, and even art and literary quotes and references that would most likely fly way over the heads of most. You just don’t get this kind of thing on TV anywhere else. It really shouldn’t work. But it does.

Theme. The central theme of the story is strong and resonates perfectly. We feel Buffy’s vulnerability, her isolation, her loss of confidence. We’ve all been there.

SMG. She gives a great performance and really sells us on Buffy feeling overwhelmed and lost. She wanders around the big, crowded campus looking so small and fragile. When the obnoxious lecturer cruelly humiliates her you just wanna give her a big ol’ hug. And when she is again humiliated by nasty Sunday it’s almost too much to take. You can’t do this to Buffy! Joss just loves to make her suffer.

Sunday. But as great as SMG is, it is Katharine Towne as evil bitch vamp Sunday who steals the show. Her calm yet vicious putdowns and general sense of power and effortless superiority makes us hate her and love her in equal measure. Watching her beat, abuse and humiliate poor Buffy is pretty harsh stuff. And she does it so well. I’d have loved to see her get together with Spike.

Xander. Xander pops up late in the episode to give Buffy the much-needed pep talk she needs. He spells it out for her, reminding her exactly who she is and what she can do. The entire scene with Xander and Buffy at the Bronze is brilliant. It is very funny and also very tender and touching. Nicky Brendon is so darn good and reminds us that Xander is the beating human heart of the show. His comforting, encouraging and inspiring speech to Buffy is so well delivered that any true fan couldn’t help but feel their eyes start to sting a bit.

Yoda. Xander’s mangled Yoda quote from that summer’s The Phantom Menace is hilarious. It’s better than the movie.

Giles. Man of leisure Giles living like Hugh Hefner. Heh.

Riley. This ep sees first appearance of Marc Blucas as Riley Finn. Sod the haters, I always liked Riley. He was just a nice, decent guy.

The fights. The first fight between Buffy and Sunday is a full on, fast paced, bone crunching smackdown. It looks like it really hurts. The second one is Buffy pretty much doing the rope-a-dope.

Stake. Buffy’s uber-cool stake twirl near episode’s end, showing us she’s got her mojo back.

WHY IT SUCKS

It doesn’t suck. However the only thing that does bug me is the ‘reconnaissance’ gag. Xander asks Buffy if she’s up for a bit of reconnaissance. She looks confused and asks if he means getting arty like they did in Europe years ago? To which Xander replies, “That was the Renaissance.” I’m sorry, but Buffy is not that dumb. I know it’s an ongoing gag in the show that she occasionally gets words muddled, but Buffy knows perfectly well what reconnaissance means. This just makes her appear needlessly dumb. Naughty Joss.

IT’S BUFFTASTIC

Xander’s moving and heartfelt confidence boost speech to Buffy.

DIALOGUE TO DIE FOR

It’s Joss so there’s tons. But I’ll go with…

Girl Vamp: "Does this sweater make me look fat?"
Sunday: "No. The fact that you're fat makes you look fat. That sweater just makes you look purple."

Giles (to Buffy after she’s seen his ‘friend’ Olivia): "I'm not supposed to have a private life?"
Buffy (looking uncomfortable): "No. Because you're very, very old and it's gross."

Buffy (to Giles): "OK, remember before you became Hugh Hefner, when you used to be a Watcher?"

Buffy: “How do you get to be renowned? I mean, like, do you have to be nowned first?”
Willow: “Yes. First there's the painful nowning process.”

Willow: “It's just in high school, knowledge was pretty much frowned upon; you really had to work to learn anything. But here, the energy, the collective intelligence, it's like this force, this penetrating force, and I can just feel my mind opening up, you know? And letting this place just thrust into and, and spurt knowledge into ... that sentence ended up in a different place than it started out in.”
Buffy: “I'm with you. I'm all for spurty knowledge.”

Eddie: “Of Human Bondage. Have you ever read it?”
Buffy: “Oh, I'm not really into porn. I mean, I'm just trying to cut way back.”

Xander (to a morose Buffy): “And you're sitting here at the Bronze looking like you just got diagnosed with cancer of the puppy.”

Xander: “Buffy, I've gone through some fairly dark times in my life. Faced some scary things, among them the kitchen at the fabulous Ladies Night club. Let me tell ya' something: When it's dark, and I'm all alone, and I'm scared, or freaked out or whatever, I always think, 'What would Buffy do?' You're my hero. Ok, sometimes when it's dark and I'm all alone, I think, 'What is Buffy wearing?’...”

Buffy (to Sunday): “Let me answer that question with a head butt.”

AND ANOTHER THING

Couple of foreshadowing moments: first, Buffy’s humorous line about the price of school books and how she hopes when her mom gets the bill she has “…a funny aneurysm.” With our future knowledge this line is far from funny. Second, Xander’s call out for “Avengers assemble!” in order to bring the Scoobies back together. As we know, in summer 2012, Joss will be calling the real Avengers to assemble! Yay!

The skylight above Sunday’s lair is the same set used in season 1 finale ‘Prophecy Girl’ and in 3.19 ‘Choices’.

When Buffy answers the phone and no one speaks, it's Angel on the other end. He makes the call during the premiere of Angel, 1.1 ‘City of…’

HOW MANY STAKES?

Sunday bloody Sunday. 4 (out of 5)

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Um...okay. I won't.

WARNING! This trailer is waaay scarier than the actual movie.


Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is written and produced by the great Guillermo Del Toro and is a remake of on an old TV movie that apparently traumatised Del Toro as a child. But for some reason he didn’t want to direct his own script this time and so handed the reigns over to first timer Troy Nixey.

The story sees ten-year-old Sally (Bailee Madison) being sent by an uncaring mother to live with her dad (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in the old, rundown mansion that her dad is renovating in order to sell for a profit. Sally, feeling rejected by her mother and unwanted by her busy father, explores the old house, finding a hidden cellar and an old metal grate bolted shut. From behind the grate she hears whispered voices asking for help, promising to be her friend. Lonely and desperate for a connection, to feel wanted, Sally opens the grate, thus releasing a horde of nasty little gremlin-like creatures in to the house. Creatures we soon discover lied to her and want the little girl for their own horrible ends.

First, let’s get one thing straight. Despite the marketing, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is not really a horror film.

Okay, it has some mild violence when the local handyman gets attacked by the nasty little critters, and a couple of so so ‘boo’ moments, but the overriding feel is of a mildly creepy fairy story. A Brothers Grimm tale. As in his film Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro uses the classic fairytale trope of a little child, feeling alone in the world, getting sucked in to another weird and creepy world full of fairies and monsters. There is even the set-up of a potentially wicked stepmother in the Katie Holmes girlfriend character. But Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark lacks the depth and artistic sensibilities of Del Toro's earlier classic, though it mirrors it in certain ways. Pan’s Labyrinth is an intelligent adult take on how young children can use their innocent imagination to conjure an escape from the harsh realities of life. It is a brutal, haunting, and beautiful film that packs a big emotional wallop. Here, things are reversed. The supernatural ‘horror’ is real and allows the child to finally form a meaningful relationship with a kindly parental figure rather than said child using an imagined supernatural fantasy to escape from adult brutality.

As director, Troy Nixey does solid enough work but can’t seem to create any real tension or a genuine sense of foreboding. He also fails to make the little monsters properly scary. We see way too much of them far too early. Also the tone of the film is kinda contradictory. On the one hand it wants to be a child friendly spookfest, like something Disney might have made live action back in the 1970’s. There’s no swearing, no nudity, and no sex. But on the other hand it does have some blood and some brief graphic violence (old dude getting stabbed by scissors and slashed by a Stanley knife). It wants to be a child friendly fairytale but also a graphic horror too. And as a result, fails to do either especially well.

Of the cast, only young Bailee Madison as Sally makes an impression. She does lonely and afraid very well and really sells the emotional fragility of a child who feels unwanted and pushed from pillar to post, who’s quietly desperate to make a connection with someone…or something. Guy Pearce as the dad is okay. He is pretty much the stock busy, distracted father who disbelieves anything fanciful coming from his ‘troubled’ young daughter. Katie Holmes is also ok as Kim. Actually, to be fair, I did quite like the often much maligned Holmes here. Kim and Sally seem quite similar. Artistic, unsure of themselves, with Kim alluding to her own troubled childhood. And despite Sally’s initial hostility, Kim feels a connection with the little girl. It is also interesting that Bailee Madison and Katie Holmes look very similar. They could be related. Check out Bailee’s photo on IMDB – a dead spit for a young Holmes. Oh, and just as a point of interest, the movie also features Aussie actor Alan Dale in a small role, sharing a couple of scenes with Guy Pearce. Twenty years ago Alan played Jim Robinson in Aussie soap Neighbours alongside Guy who played Jim’s son’s best friend. Small world.

Anyway, in the end, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is an okay little movie that works better as a kids fairytale than as an adult horror. It isn’t scary, the creatures are fairly well done but kinda silly, while overall tension is sadly lacking. But the film looks good, Bailee Madison gives a strong central performance as Sally, and the basic concept is classically appealing, especially to me being the sucker that I am for fairytales in all their guises. 3 (out of 5)

Gary Oldman Goes Spy Catching in 70's Britain

Trailer

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tomas (Let the Right One In) Alfredson directs this new adaptation of John le Carre’s famous 1970’s set spy thriller starring Gary Oldman as retired spy catcher George Smiley brought back in to British Intelligence to find a Soviet mole at the very top of the organisation.

I’ve never read le Carre's book and am only vaguely familiar with the old 1970’s BBC adaptation with Alec Guinness as Smiley, so I went to this mainly as a fan of Alfredson and Oldman. And because it has a top notch cast featuring the likes of Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Kathy Burke, Mark Strong and John Hurt.

And it didn’t disappoint.

This is a brilliant film with brilliant work by the cast and their director. Oldman deserves an Oscar nom. As Smiley he is quietly compelling and the model of restrained cunning and intelligence though hampered by an emotional weakness around his estranged wife and haunted by some of the things he’s done in his past. Mark Strong is equally as good as a field agent sent out on a mission that goes wrong and who has to then live with the personal consequences. As director, Alfredson paints a suitably drab atmosphere of 70’s Britain – crumbling old buildings, horrible wallpaper and tacky Wimpy Bars (an old British chain for fast food), all beautifully brought to life by spot on art direction and moody cinematography. And the themes he explores are very similar to those in Let the Right One in. Many of the characters here are loners, separate from life. They don’t join in. They watch from the outside. They are all essentially lonely and emotionally damaged people. Also, as with Let the Right One In, Alfredson isolates his characters, often using windows as a barrier. They are seen looking out of them a lot, looking at a world they don’t feel a part of. Then there is the pacing. It is glacial. There is no big action. Instead it is all about conversations, subtle mind games, red herrings and double crosses by oft middle-aged men in bad suits, usually in drab rooms. But it is all utterly absorbing and highly cinematic, showing us a whole new world, the kind we would never normally see; showing us the toll this world takes on these people. This is the true anti-James Bond or Bourne. Only the always good Tom Hardy as field officer Ricky Tarr comes close to a Bond-esque life, working out in Turkey to get secrets from a possible Soviet source, then seducing the guy's wife, thinking that she is the real source. There is no huge climax to the movie either, only Smiley finally working out who the mole is and springing his subtle trap, followed by the sad and grim aftermath.

Tomas Alfrdson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a beautifully written, acted and directed film with a refreshing adult tone and feel. It requires patience and a certain level of intelligence from its audience. As much as I love my fun/escapist movie entertainment, it is a welcome relief to go see something now and again that is unapolagetically adult and artistically demanding of its audience. 4.5 (5)