Dark Touch

Think of "Carrie" but much bleaker and without the gratuitous nudity. Niamh, a young Irish girl, is the victim of severe, pervasive emotional, physical and sexual abuse. But she has a weapon - telekinesis - which she uses to dispose of her abusers. Now she has to face the world like every other person does. But her inability to take part in regular social interactions leads her to paranoia and, with her powers growing, she begins to exact revenge for every slight she perceives. Undoubtedly, this is a grim story but it is written with courage and skill. The acting is natural and basically seamless. The direction is also quite good. My main critique may also be the writer's point: does Niamh's vengeance have to be so consuming so as to make her an abuser as well? I guess you could think of "Carrie" here as well (though Carrie never offs young children). Alas, the film is not a celebration of the human spirit; instead, it becomes a tale of what can occur when all communication breaks down and a touch turns into torture.

The movie Dark Touch is rife with images of child abuse. There are bruises, bite marks on a baby's belly, kids are put in strangleholds, slapped, shaken. I know a lot of people might not be able to handle that who might be able to stomach a lot of other stuff in horror movies.My main issue with this movie is that it's not great. It feels slovenly, like maybe the team behind it thought they were creating the world's first Creepy Kid movie. Missy Keating makes a good Neve, the child who uses her powers of telekinesis and mind control to take revenge on all those who commit child abuse or seem like they do. She plays out an interesting evolution from an unwitting avenger to a girl who is in total control of what she does. But the adults she has to deal with are not particularly interesting (the exception is Charlotte Flyvholm, the elfin guidance counselor with the infectious giggle, but she really doesn't get anything interesting to do) and watching them go down just feels kind of weird. Something bad happened with the daughter of Neve's adoptive family (because Neve inadvertently kills her own parents at the start of the movie—with furniture! More on that soon!) Mary, supposedly a few years dead of cancer. In all her photographs Mary has bruises. There's definitely a story there, and it justifies the ending where Neve is putting out cigarettes on the skin of adoptive mother Nat (Marcella Plunkett). But maybe I'm just too dumb, it doesn't seem like we're ever told exactly what happened to Mary, and it seems that would have strengthened the movie a lot.If you get your jollies off of seeing people attacked by fast moving furniture, this is your film. Pinning adults against the wall with cabinets and chests of drawers (moving them WITH HER MIND!!!) is Neve's signature move. It never quite worked for me, especially not when a grown woman (Nat, I think) get's slammed into the wall by a flimsy card table laden with a child's birthday gifts.Probably pass on this one.

It has its heart in the right place. Paranormal telekinetic powers come to the aid of abused children. So many kids wish they had the power to resist adult abuse, or may not know whether they have the right to resist what is inflicted upon them. It is nicely shot and acted. Much of the mayhem seemed ridiculous to me. Perhaps it's good to compare this with Thelma (2018), where the powers are handled with more restraint, by someone who is, of course, a young adult. Goodnight, Mommy (2014), The Children (2008), and Who Can Kill a Child? (1976), among many others, seem to go back to Jerome Bixby's story It's A Good Life (1953), adapted for the old Twilight Zone series, or even Ray Bradbury's The Small Assassin (1946) and It's Alive (1974) come to mind. Many a slasher film has been inspired by stories of tormented offspring offing their parents. One would hope that adults wouldn't mistreat their own children. But if kids had the means to fight back? With their overactive imaginations and low frustration levels? Especially if they had psychic powers? A lethal combination to frighten many an adult, to be sure. Fortunately, murderous children who can cause widespread death and mayhem by force of will are unlikely. The murderous child soldiers of countries torn by civil war are, unfortunately, very much a threat, and both traumatized and traumatizers. And violent youth gangs seem to be getting ever younger in the world.

Dark and not afraid to get weird.

while not a great movie, its also not a bad movie like a couple have stated, the cinematography was good, the story was descent and there was not an ending you would expect, but for me thats what i liked about it, so i'm going to give it 3 stars because i have seen plenty that are better, but as I stated I was entertained and watched it from beginning to end, which is not always the case with me and horror films.

Good, but Odd. Ending was really bad.

A solid example of its genre!

I have been a horror fan all of my life, and have seen bad scripts. This one though... seems like it wants to go one way, then it veers completely off course. I don't think the writer actually had a story to tell and they just had a list of horror movie plot points. They then took a wheel of chance and just filled in all the blanks by spinning the wheel. (think mad libs, but for horror movies) What came out is utter garbage. I had to skip to the end after a point because it was too painful to watch. Not because it pulled at fear or anything else... Unless I was afraid of being both annoyed and bored to death at the same time.

Eleven-year-old Missy Keating survives a home invasion that leaves her parents and baby brother dead. Local police and teachers ignore the traumatised girl’s explanation that the house itself is evil. The child welfare case worker isn’t much help either: “Did I tell you the time I ate all the caviar my parents had put aside for an important dinner?” The clueless grown ups are going to pay dearly for not heeding the signs in an unsettling supernatural horror story told from the splintered perspective of an abused child. Creepy and disturbing, this Children of the Damned inversion is as far-fetched as Orphan, although weirder and nastier, with a wickedly perverse ending as twisted as Insidious. Like a bad dream, it lingers.

Neve is an 11 year old girl who goes to live with family friends following the horrific death of all of her immediate family, in what seemed to be a violent home invasion. But the events that Neve suffered follow her to her new home threatening all who live there.Had I known exactly what this film was about, I would have left it on Amazon's shelf. The subject matter I find distasteful and I guess this review will be biased. Not giving anything away about the plot, this is a UK production with an '18' rating, and the cover advises 'strong bloody violence, child abuse'. So you probably get the picture.The film, as you would expect, is extraordinarily bleak. And as things move along it actually gets worse, and ends in a way I did not expect (and that's not a good thing). I always think that asking a young child to participate in such a film as this cannot be good for the child, and this one didn't change my mind. It didn't help that the young actress wasn't really up to the task, making the production even more unsatisfactory. The supernatural aspects were never really explained, and I'm guessing this road was taken to bulk up the storyline and try to attract a wider viewing audience. This isn't a film I would put on my re-watch list. Be warned.

Incontestablement "dark touch" prend place dans la catégorie "paranormal" des films d'horreur. On est très vite installés dans une ambiance angoissante qui soulève des questions chez le spectateur. L'ambiance tout au long du film est sombre, pesant et anxiogène. Maison hantée, objets en rebellion, morts, tout y est. Helas le thème de la maltraitance n'est pas assez mis en avant et le scénario s'emmêle dans les pistes qu'il révéle pour aboutir à un final en forme de ? majuscule. Dommage car Marina de Van sait incontestablement installer une athmosphère. Reste juste pour elle à apprendre à raconter une histoire claire. 2.5 / 5

Sort un peu de l'ordinaire.Une très jeune fille qui fugue de chez elle,en pleine nuit.Lorsque les voisins la ramènent à ses parents,ceux-ci font mine de ne pas savoir pourquoi la fillette,a fugué et a est reclus sur elle même! En fait il y a également les marques qui ressemblent à des brûlures de cigarettes,qu'elle a sur ses jambes.La nuit d'après les parents sont écrasés par les meubles.En attendant d'en savoir plus sur la cause,ou les auteurs de ce crime affreux.La fillette est placé,momentanément chez les voisins.mais rien n'est terminé à ce moment là!

Tres bon film MERCI