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Miramax Films: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Producer and co-writer of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Guillermo del Toro, and director Troy Nixey came to present their re-imagining of the classic Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Guillermo del Toro explained that the original was one of his favorite horror films back from the golden age of made for tv horror but could never find it or anyone who has even seen it. Watching Guillermo at the Comic-Con panel was hilarious…he curses like a sailor. He described Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark as a hard-hitting classical horror where the the ending hits you like a motherfucker. Right after he warned the crowd that if there are children in the audience, it’s too late, the word of the day is motherfucker, and he’s not elmo. Back around 1997 or 1998, Guillermo wrote the screenplay and waited to be able to do the movie right with a studio who won’t get in their way and a director who could do a great bringing it to the big screen. This is the feature directorial debut of Troy Nixey.

Guillermo said that they’re not fucking chickening out and the ending will be there! They didn’t add sexuality or profanity but still got an R for pervasive scariness. Guillermo said that this was like a seal of approval of how scary it is. They asked the MPAA if there was anything that could be done to get a PG-13 rating and the MPAA asked him why he would want to ruin a perfectly scary movie. Del Toro said the horror movies are like a pirate ship…the more Rs the better. The footage that they showed shocked the audience…the girl next to be was so scared that she had to hide under her sweater.


So what’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark about? It’s a present day story about an ancient ash pit, or chimney, exists in an ancient house. A girl moves in with her family and opens this pit. All the things from below that live in the ash pit want to taker her down with them…into to the darkness of this fairy world. This mixes fairy tales with horror like for example, the tooth fairy wanting your teeth. Guillermo explained that this movie is as serious as an attack of gonorrhea. I think Guillermo should write a comedy…if he writes it the way he talks, it would be hilarious!




Overture: Let Me In
This was probably the most serious film that was presented at Comic-Con. Let Me In is a remake of the classic, “Let The Right One In.” It’s a different look on the story about vampires written and directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield). The movie is centered around two young kids played by some of the best child actors in the business right now: Kick Ass’s Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee from The Road. From the footage shown, it looks amazing and may become another great addition to this story (there is a novel and movie already). Matt Reeves said that he wanted to take the elements of the first movie and combine it with more details from the novel. He set the story in the 80s and in very regular American-style development similar to Edward Scissorhands. The performances from all of the actors involved are sure to be breathtaking.

Pretty much, this a story about the difficulties of a young vampire (played by Chloe Moretz). She moves to a new city where her caretaker begins to do his duty of finding her blood to survive. She moves in next door to a bullied boy (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee). She ends up being his only friend even after telling him that they can’t hang out since she isn’t what she seems. Instead of glamorizing the life of a vampire, the story really shows how hard it is to live in a modern society and the obstacles that they have to go through. Check out the red band trailer below: