I love a good horror movie.  Trouble is, so many just pile up the gore and guts and completely ignore the chills found in a really, truly scary movie.  Like The Others.  Yes, yes, we all hated Nicole Kidman at that time, but, boy, did that movie scare the crap out of me.  Same with The Ring.  When that creepy, unnaturally white girl climbed out of the TV, dripping, no less, I was hiding behind my couch. 

So I was so set to love Darkness.  Creepy house, set in Spain for God's sake, and decent actors/actresses.  But then the movie hit a clunker that ruined it all for me.  I could buy the whole evil madman, forms this cult, kills children, yada yada yada.  But here comes the clunker (and spoiler):  Anna Pacquin is down in the basement of the evil madman's (or, Grandpa's) lair; he has her tied to a chair; he is drawing up a syringe full of some diabolical poison; he is almost grinning, as he holds it up, and turns to his granddaughter.....and then the doorbell rings.  And then, he sets. down. the. syringe....and goes to answer the door.  What the hell?!  Had he ordered a pizza?  Was it the cable guy?  I mean, either go ahead and off granddaughter and then go attend to the visitor, a visitor of such importance that he had to delay his 40-year plan to plunge the world into Evil Darkness.  Or, just a thought, ignore the doorbell!

Worse yet, as the movie progresses, we find that the person at the door is actually Anna Pacquin's boyfriend, who receives the syringe of diabolical poison......and then wakes up roughly 7 minutes later.  Huh?  Ruined it all for me, even if the rest of the movie was pretty decent. 

This called to mind several other absolutely ridiculous scenes from movies:

2.  Dirty Dancing.  All right, making fun of Dirty Dancing is like punching Winnie the Pooh in the face: unnecessarily mean to make fun of something so soft and harmless.  But even sappy love stories should make sense.  So everyone is panicked because (gasp!) Penny will be unable to dance at the Big Show!  Patrick Swayze needs a new partner!  Bravely, Baby steps forward!  Why, oh why, out of all the "dirty dancers" at this camp, is the only person who can possibly dance with Patrick Swayze......Baby, the sheltered camp guest from the suburbs who has already proven she can't even dance?  Once again, "huh?" 
 
3.   Premonition  Admittedly, this one was full of inconsistencies, and the audience was expected to suspend disbelief a bit.  But, come on, Sandra, could you have maybe encouraged hubby to stay home and not leave the house at all on the day you knew he would be killed?  Could you have, oh, I don't know, set your alarm or something to ensure he didn't just "slip away?" 

4.   Little Miss Sunshine  I loved this movie, even with the cringeworthy ending, where everyone looked appropriately embarassed.  But I kept coming back to the logic of the entire family travelling from Albequerque to L.A., because it was "cheaper" than flying.  Hello?  The entire family, travelling in a broken down van, staying in not one but three hotel rooms every night of the trip, plus three meals a day for 6 people?  Wouldn't it have been so much more sensical to just say they all wanted to go see Olive? 

5.  Sleeping With the Enemy   I was hoping for some suspense, little drama, good acting:  instead you get gorgeous Julia Roberts trying: a. to be plain and b. to fit in in small town Iowa, with an appropriately handsome college teacher next door.  Oh-kay.  But the really ridiculous scene happens near the end of the movie: Julia Roberts is attending a carnival with her new beau.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the scene is happy and pretty and wearing beautiful, colorful clothes......and suddenly, there is Patrick Bergin, black hair, black eyes, black mustache, wearing a long, black coat, glowering in black rage at everyone about him.  And yet, no one notices him!  They all continute skipping happily about, even as this obvious monster is squarely at the center of their fun.  

There are dozens more..........but you get my point.