You can sense producer and cowriter Guillermo del Toro’s hand in every shadowy nook and cranny.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 1, 2024

Guillermo del Toro has always been fascinated with putting a face to our nightmares. And to be sure, many moviegoers will have nightmares from Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2023

It does come off as a slightly watered-down Pan's Labyrinth - it steps towards the abyss of strangeness but never quite leaps off

| Jan 10, 2022

Like it's predecessor, one of the most unique aspects is the creature design, utilizing tiny, misshapen, devilish critters scurrying around on the ground like oversized rats.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 30, 2020

Hmm. Little girl. Secluded mansion. Not a good sign.

| Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 6, 2020

While never terrifying, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is surprisingly creepy. And while GDT is covering some familiar ground, Director Troy Nixey has taken GDT's screenplay and created a hauntingly effective horror film.

| Apr 1, 2020

As for the film's payoff? Bone chilling terror. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

| Nov 26, 2019

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark works well as a whole, and should leave you satisfyingly unable to comply to its titular injunction: best viewed with the lights off.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 24, 2019

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark is fun and creepy in an old-fashioned Hammer way, but it never makes us truly afraid.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 8, 2019

"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" has the distinction of mixing some old-fashioned spine-tingling scares in with a decidedly new spine to be tingled.

| Jan 9, 2019

Solidly creepy fun with occasional moments of frightening brilliance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 1, 2018

There are dumb movies, and then there are Dumb Movies, movies that seem so brain-dead that they don't even bring a number 2 pencil to the exam. This is one of those movies.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 4, 2018

Without the gravitas, its strengths lie in its better-than-average-horror cast and good scares.

| May 14, 2018

The film's standout star though is the absolutely stunning house. It sets a new bar for gorgeously creepy sets and is only made all the more awesome by the history built up for it in the film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 28, 2017

The thoroughly unsympathetic protagonist aside, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" just isn't that frightening.

| Oct 7, 2015

There's a simple sense of old-fashioned restraint that makes Sally's dark journey a little bit quiet, but also subtly satisfying.

| Aug 26, 2015

Straddled uncomfortably between its modest premise and reckless CGI abandon.

Full Review | May 3, 2015

If the scares aren't all quite as effective as the rest of the film, then there's still plenty to tickle the nerves of a less jaded horror fan.

| Sep 8, 2013

Completists of del Toro will want to check it out as a curio but it's hard to imagine general audiences or even horror fans finding anything here they haven't seen before.

| Original Score: C | Jul 10, 2013

Guillermo del Toro's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is as murky and ill-conceived as its multitude of dimly-lit corners,

| Original Score: 5/10 | Feb 28, 2013