Down a Dark Hall

It's a smart, well-crafted tale that is thoroughly contemporary, yet somewhat old-school in that it doesn't go for cheap shocks. Instead, the emphasis is on mood, atmosphere and some sharply etched characterizations.

Its elegant subtlety feels refreshing in this era of over-the-top horror films.

Thurman, oily accent dripping with menace, is no Disney villain here. She’s real world dangerous, vulpine, callous, keeping supernatural secret threats from her pupils.

This is a decent modern Gothic thriller handled with sufficient style and a straight face by genre ace Cortés. His efforts, and strong performances by the young female leads, make for a movie that’s fairly strong meat by juvenile fantasy standards, if probably a tad wimpy for horror-fan tastes.

Based on Lois Duncan’s gothic young adult novel, Down a Dark Hall is entry-level horror for teens. The scares might not satisfy those old enough to vote, but it should provide mild chills for its target audience.

Somehow, neither the plentiful creaky floorboards that the story rests on nor Thurman’s spot-on, French-accented coolness manages to send shivers down the audience’s spine through this allegorical and bitterly timeless tale of female exploitation.

Ultimately, Down a Dark Hall falls victim to familiar teen horror tropes: a brooding lead with a heart of gold, predictable jump scares, wincingly bad romantic tension, and obvious villains.

Good solid ghost story, The kind you may have saw in the 80's to mid 90's. Not really scary but I quite enjoyed it.

Good performance by Uma Thurman. However, this film lost a few points with me because of it's utterly common and predictable plot. There was just nothing special about it. I also have some complaints about the sound and lighting: too much dark lighting made the picture hard to see and the sound was SO unbalanced that it was actually aggrivating to watch - one minute it's whisper quiet, so I turn up the volume. Next, it's blasting loud - wakes up everyone in the house, the dog starts barking, the windows start rattling, chandeliers are swinging from the ceiling, plaster is falling and I'm clutching my heart!

The premise of this movie is interesting, but they failed to execute it in a meaningful way. I wouldn’t call it a simple horror film and it does build to somewhere, yet I feel like the characters and the story were never connected so not a lot gets fleshed out. I’m not jaded, but this film helps point out so many of the current useless tropes in films. Voice overs of actual dialogue coming back that are from earlier in the film used like they are grand words of wisdom set in stone being one of them. It’s use here was made even more polarizing during a moment when it was supposed to be uplifting, but it fell flat because the film makers where completely off the mark as they used throw away lines from the movie’s “villain.” The only reason I gave this a 5 and not a 3 was because Uma Thurman is in it and she rules. Not a great movie. Somewhat different, just not entertaining.

A shade darker than the horror films we usually watch and I am only speaking about the lack of lights that in times makes it hard to watch. It's cool that the director went that way but a few more lights wouldn't hurt. As for the scares, they are limited and fail to thrill. Yes you might say that it has the feeling of a 90s' movie, but this is the reason we can not enjoy it. because we've seen it all before. And better. As for the acting, Uma Therman does her best but her french accent makes her look out of place because, come on. We all know Uma. AnnaSophia Robb on the other hand is a 25year who is over-acting trying to pass as a teenager by just shaking her head too much when she talks! Just watch it for that.

One of the worst "horrors" I have ever seen in my life. There was zero atmosphere, zero suspense. The acting was also pretty bad, including Uma Thurman. Boring, anticlimactic, chliche, tiring.