Enter producer/co-writer Guillermo del Toro and his latest protégé Troy Nixey, a


pair of dark fantasists and monster lovers aiming to give the kids of 2011 some sleepless nights of their own. “He held onto it as the absolute scariest thing that he ever saw in his life,” says


Nixey of del Toro’s obsession with the film. “But it wasn’t until years later that he saw it again and was like, ‘Oh no, the movie in my head was so much better.’ He wanted to make the version that he always saw in his head. So he chased down the rights for years.” Del Toro first wrote a screenplay for the adaptation with Matthew Robbins (Drag-


onslayer, Mimic) in the mid-’90s, and planned to direct it. That version took the concept in a direction very fitting for the auteur, by expanding the mythology of the mysterious little monsters and, in typical del Toro fashion, placing a child at the cen- tre of the disturbance, much like he did with Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Back- bone. (“It’s inherently scarier when it is a little kid that you’re putting in jeopardy,” Nixey acknowledges.) However, in the years it took to find financing, del Toro decided to take on the


role of producer in order to let a first-time feature filmmaker take a crack at it, as he did with The Orphanage and Julia’s Eyes. That’s where Nixey, an established comic book artist who has worked on Batman books and Mike Mignola’s Jenny Finn, comes in. Del Toro loved his art and was very receptive when he sent him his dark fantasy short Latchkey’s Lament. The very day that del Toro received the disc, he called Nixey to offer him Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. “You could have knocked me over with a feather at that moment,” recalls Nixey. “Then


I read the script, loved it and it started from there.” The production came together fairly quickly, with del Toro guiding the rookie filmmaker


all the way. “When I needed to ask questions, he was there for me,” says Nixey. “But I always felt very confident in the fact that I was the director on the movie and I was able to create the vision that was in my head.” As interesting as it would have been to see what del Toro would have done with his


script back in the ’90s, Nixey proves to be a more than suitable substitute, displaying a real talent for gothic design, leering cinematography and orchestrating things that go bump in the night. In his version, a young girl named Sally (Bailee Madison), who has been recently abandoned by her mother, moves into a creepy mansion with her stressed- out father, Alex (Guy Pearce), and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes). Alienated from her fractured family, Sally goes exploring and opens the basement fireplace, unleashing the tiny green monsters. Alex dismisses the creatures, chalking them up to a child’s imagination gone wild, but Kim discovers that a boy who previously lived in the house, and disappeared, also claimed to be hounded by them. The question is, does Kim uncover the truth in time? It’s a horror movie in the Poltergeist vein, geared for a young crowd but strong enough


to freak out anyone who still feels uneasy alone in the dark. And although it adds nothing new to the genre, it’s an ingeniously constructed scare factory (the opening sequence features a wonderfully upsetting tooth-mashing sequence.) Nixey admits that he wasn’t familiar with the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark –


which was helmed by TV director John Newland (One Step Beyond, The Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents) – when he signed on, but quickly became a member of the movie’s small yet devoted cult following. He even added a few nods to it, but was able to create something bigger, working with a feature film budget. “A TV movie from 1973 is going to have limitations,” he points out. “Whereas when


you’re making a studio movie in 2009, when we shot it, you’re just going to supersede what they did. So, yeah, it’s a much bigger movie in that sense, but the idea is still the same – the idea of these little creeps, these little disgusting, horrible things coming out of the ashpit after it’s been opened.” The filmmakers incorporated some of the original creature design, including the mon-


sters’ wrinkled heads, murderous eyes and unnerving whispers. Though it would have been nice to see a few actual puppets in action, the CGI creatures are still grotesque enough to get the job done. The lanky-limbed, bug-eyed, ankle-biting critters easily put the low-fi creatures from the original to shame. The most important and effective aspect of the original film, however, was its subtle


suspense and psychological approach to horror rather than obvious shock and gore tac- tics. Nixey says he was careful to preserve that style. “There was a lot of implied terror in the original and our version is heavily implied as


well,” he explains. “I’m proud of that because if you go back and watch it and take out the ick factor, it’s actually really suggestive, but so strongly suggestive that people think it is really gruesome. The best thing you can do as a horror filmmaker is imply and have [the audience] fill in the rest of the information. The connections that they make in their


Cellar Dwellers: (top) Sally (Bailee Madison) tries to avoid the creatures who want to claim her, and Sally, Kim (Katie Holmes) and Alex (Guy Pearce) check the basement for beasties.


heads will always be a thousand times worse than anything we could show.” On the flip side, one of the key changes to the plot concerns the backstory of the


movie’s monsters, something barely touched upon in the original. Nixey is careful not to reveal spoilers, but says that his and del Toro’s shared love of fables definitely shines through. (“It doesn’t all appear onscreen, but there’s definitely a deeper, denser mythology,” he allows.) Their particular implicit approach to horror was potent, because while Nixey shot


an almost bloodless movie geared for a PG-13 rating, the MPAA ended up slapping an R rating on the finished film. That sort of reaction for a horror movie is nothing new, but the ratings board proved to be surprisingly supportive when the filmmakers inquired about cutting the film down to a PG-13. Nixey recalls, “Their response was, ‘Why would you want to do that? It’s a perfectly


great Restricted movie. Just keep it the way it is.’ Then everyone at the studio was like, ‘Done!’ That’s as far as the conversation went. It was fantastic.” In fact, the filmmaker feels that he was able to execute his exact vision, which is


obviously a rarity in the studio system, especially for a fledgling director. “I clearly see the kinds of movies that I want to make. There isn’t a sense of, ‘Maybe


this or maybe that.’ ... This was such an amazing expe- rience that coming out of it, I don’t even know what else I would do now. If I’m not directing movies, I’d have to go work at a coffee shop.”


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