The tyranist's thoughts
Blatantly horror flicks rated PG-13 or less are usually automatically knocked down a notch or two before I see them simply because it is hard to believe that a movie is going to be scary if the MPAA didn't find it scary enough for an R. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of scare-filled PG-13 movies out there, I just don't expect them going in.
A boy who suffered terrible (and very real) night terrors as a lad suddenly turns back up in the life of one of his good friends (who, coincidentally, also had night terrors as a lass). She doesn't believe him much even when he kills himself in front of her. Her night terrors start back up and she meets a couple more people whose night terrors from their childhoods has also started back up.
It was nice to see Ethan Embry on the big screen again, other than him, the cast was pretty unrecognizable to me. They weren't inferior though. The script is nice and the ending, while not surprising, still caught me. There are some basic story problems involving the actual nature of the threat that are never explored and never really resolved, but other than that, I enjoyed the movie.
This is one to see on the big screen in a darkened theatre, but I think that it may also find an audience on video with the slumber party crowd. Not only is it only PG-13, but can you imagine watching this in a darkened room with a crowd of skittish teenage girls? If you can catch it in the theatre, you just might like it, on video I can't promise anything. I liked it, but then I have to run through my house as I turn the lights off so that the dark can't catch up with me.

Rish's Reviews
Tyranist and I had a conversation early in 2003 where I described Darkness Falls to him, and he described They to me. It took a lot of arguing and eye-gouging before we realised we were talking about two different films. Both have the same basic premise (dark-fearing boogeymen who haunted our heroes as kids stalk them once again as adults) and both begin the same way. There's even the same sight gag involving flashlights early on in both pictures.
The lead actress wasn't bad, though at times I wondered about her character's motivations. Tyranist and I both like Ethan Embry (I always claimed he should have been Peter Parker and he asked me for a cigarette once), so that's a plus.
Of their nearly-indentical openings (where a boy in his bed finds his room invaded by the monster[s]), Darkness Falls's was extraordinarily scary--indeed, the best part of the whole movie. They's is far less impressive or frightening, but what follows is a better movie.
I like the detail that the characters were marked as children by the creatures, and when the creatures come back, the marks come back too. There were many legitimate, nice scares involving the . . . what were they again? The creatures (tyranist called them demons, and I guess that's as good a name as any) were unusual-looking, a sort of insect/rat/alien/cat combination, that because we never see clearly, remain frightening through just about the entire film.
But while Darkness Falls was quite successful, if a very mediocre film, They was a flop, but a scarier, much better-written work. Still, it wasn't great. Sadly, there was a lot in They that should work but doesn't (or maybe it worked on paper and doesn't work on celluloid). And that includes the ending, which, as you know, is the most important part of a horror film.
Note: The DVD had an alternate ending that was pretty good, but equally unsatisfying.