Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) is a gothic horror film you can watch online on iFILM. Sally, a withdrawn girl, is shipped off to a 19th-century mansion her father and his girlfriend are restoring, and she finds a sealed iron grate bolted shut in the basement.

Something behind it whispers her name. She lets it loose: small, bony creatures that have been caged for over a century and want a child to take below. They dread light and hunt in the dark. The grown-ups don't believe her — her father is buried in the renovation, his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) writes Sally off as difficult, and belief comes far too late. Guy Pearce plays the father; Bailee Madison is Sally.

Guillermo del Toro wrote the script, reworking a 1973 TV movie he loved as a kid, and produced the directing debut of artist Troy Nixey. The trick here is scale: the monsters are tiny, the dread is enormous, driven less by jump scares than by a child no adult will listen to. Stream Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) online on iFILM.