Protraph
Lack of good storyline.
ShangLuda
Admirable film.
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Carlos Idelone
The "summary", refers to the film's weirdest line, at the climax of the film.It goes something like this, " Education used to be easy, but these days everyone has an opinion." ???? Was that supposed to be a joke? The film- makers seemed to concentrate on the looks of the film and the actors, more than the story. All the actors were "pretty", as was the scenery. I liked listening to the rich Irish accents. Unfortunately, the story seemed quite amateurish, as it contained bits and pieces from other movies, stuck together haphazardly. It jumbled "Carrie", "Who can Kill a Child", "Village of the Damned" and another recent Irish horror story,"The Daisy Chain", in which a little girl/elf burns her parents to death. The imagery was well done, but the plot was basically incoherent, with very little real story.
SnoopyStyle
In a remote Irish community, eleven-year-old Niamh is haunted by invisible forces. She and her family are attacked during the night and she's the sole survivor of the ensuing fire. She is taken in by her neighbors. Nobody believes her about the mysterious powers of the house. She finds strange occurrences continue to follow her and thinks that they are the results of her own tears.It's a reasonable indie horror. There is only one truly compelling scene with the group of girls and the dolls. The movie basically follows Niamh but it doesn't make it particularly scary. It starts with the original family dealing with a haunted house and ultimately dying in a violent night. That's not that scary either. The last act devolves into messy story telling. Missy Keating does a good job in the lead. This indie horror is trying something interest but it doesn't all work and it's not that scary.
Jacob Rubnitz
**DETAILED Spoiler Alert.**I just finished watching Dark Touch, and overall I liked it. However, it was not in any way a traditional horror film. It was a psychological drama in a universe where psychic powers are natural, but a rarity because the only way they can be made manifest are under extreme emotional distress or harm. In no way is this a far-fetched presumption as a viewer. The opening sequences focus much more on the psychological horror of conflict, and the sequences that follow emphasize the child's natural, common response to a traumatic experience. Enough time is spent magnifying these details, that when the psychic powers begin to manifest, it is clear that the writers have created a world where psychic powers are very natural occurrences. They are simply rare, and those who have not experienced them (in this case, the adults overseeing the children throughout), downplay the possibility that that they are even existent.All that being said, this is precisely why I enjoyed the film. The writers managed to flourish aesthetically far-fetched horrors from an origin that is very universal and common to mankind (trauma). By doing this, the victim's powers and results thereof are not only very natural outcomes in the story, but for the viewers, they are visual metaphors of the devastating effects of trauma. Dark Touch is not a story about a psychopathic child with motives that emerge from childhood abuse. Moreso, The story establishes a universe, a broad premise, where psychic powers are not merely supernatural, but natural abilities that can be made manifest under extreme emotional distress. And if that distress involves another person, someone who caused the child harm, that perpetrator is going to suffer some very horrific consequences. And not only the perpetrator, but anyone or anything else who for the child triggers any sort of resemblance to the original perpetrator or the perpetrating circumstance (the children playing with the dolls at the birthday party are symbolic psychological triggers, and the Niamh's new caretakers, after having become physically aggressive just once are also triggers). The entire causation of Niamh's psychic response is very naturally psychological in nature. That's what is so eerie about the entire story. Were every child able to express their repressed emotion and subconscious disruption after a trauma similar to Niamh's, perhaps our world wouldn't be much different than Dark Touch.
Cynthia Turcotte
This wasn't a *bad* movie, but it wasn't a great movie either. I've certainly watched bigger time sucks before. The atmosphere of the movie was great. Gray, gloomy, foreboding, etc... So I liked the tone of the movie, and I was able to get behind the characters of Nat, Lucas, the social worker and little Neve.Where the movie started to hedge into the 'meh' zone was when it tried to do too much. It tried to be a supernatural 'whodunit'. Was it an evil entity in the house? A spirit protecting little Neve? A poltergeist? 'Carrie'-esque telekinetic abilities? The movie kind of jumped all over the place with that.******** NOTE THAR BE SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT **********Clearly she figures out that *she* is the cause of all of the weirdness when she rescues her two classmates from their abusive mother. As to why they killed the other children? If you remember the garden party, the little girls were beating, stabbing, and otherwise being mean to their dollies. In Neve's mind, they were bad mommies, and in this movie, bad mommies and daddies come to a bad end.As far as the 180 at the end, if you recall, Nat and Lucas had a little girl who died from cancer. Neve doesn't believe the story. In her mind, the little girl died because her parents were bad to her and didn't love her. My question is this - did Neve and her two classmates die as well? I'm thinking not, because they just sat there smiling. Also, what the heck was up with the tears turning red?
