From the twisted mind of Pans Labyrinth-creator Guillermo del Toro comes Don’t be Afraid of the Dark. Del Toro wrote and produced the film, but his role in its creation goes beyond simply putting pen to paper. The Spanish-born filmmaker’s distinctive artistic style is seen and felt throughout, as if del Toro is living vicariously through his handpicked director, newcomer Troy Nixey. Oddly enough, del Toro’s heavy hand helps result in the film’s mediocrity.

Cue the opening scene that takes places years in the past — something of a trademark in del Toro films. We see toothless homeowner Blackwood (Garry McDonald) performing home dentistry on his helpless maid. Creatures living in the basement have kidnapped his offspring, and they are demanding human teeth in exchange for the child’s safe return. But then Blackwood is horrifyingly pulled to his death by the thing-a-ma-jigs in the furnace, rousing our expectations in the process. Unfortunately, the filmmakers saved the best for first, and the next 90 minutes are decidedly less than scary.

Dark is a remake loosely based on the fondly remembered 1973 television movie of the same name, though del Toro shakes up the storyline while keeping other core aspects intact. The main character in both versions is Sally, though here she’s a young girl instead of 1973’s young woman. Sally is sent to live with her father (Guy Pierce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes), unaware that her mother intends on keeping her away indefinitely. But the couple’s home in Rhode Island is only a temporary stay—Alex, an architect, and Kim, a designer, are remodeling the place and plan to sell it when the job is complete.

Sally is a distressed child, though through no fault of her own. She has mother and father problems, the former not caring enough to keep custody and the latter too preoccupied in his architecture to show any compassion. Now she has to unwillingly live with the parent she doesn’t know and his much younger girlfriend in a house that fits well in a movie called Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.

Of course, the creatures in the basement are still there and have developed a demonic hard-on for young Sally. The family handyman, Mr. Harris (Jack Thompson), knows all about the home’s past and refuses to unbolt that furnace and unleash what’s behind it, but Sally is a kid with an imagination, and must know who or what is whispering to her.

The full reveal of the creatures is when Don’t be Afraid of the Dark admits that it is indeed okay to not be scared. The creepy crawlers from the original (created without the benefit of modern special effects) looked similar to our Oompa Loompa friends from the Chocolate Factory. Hey, it was the 1970s, and audiences didn’t yet expect photo-realistic everything. This time around, 21st-century film fans, aware that the filmmakers had CGI and a hefty budget at their disposal, can’t and won’t take these creatures seriously. They’re furry, have beady eyes, wield household items for attack sequences that echo to the destructive toys in Small Soldiers, and are just generally laughable.

I feel conflicted coming down hard on this movie. Del Toro worked on writing Dark from 1993 to 2009, showing his love for the original and dedication to crafting a good horror flick. But after seeing past del Toro works like Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone, this movie falls way short. Yes, the acting is solid across the board (even Katie Holmes), what we learn later about the creatures’ origin is as logical as it can be, and from the aesthetics to the score, the tone is consistent throughout. Yet with the responsibility of staying somewhat true to the original, del Toro and Nixey are handcuffed with aspects of a 1970’s horror that don’t translate to 2011. And for a script that took 16 years to complete, the best del Toro could come up with was the neglected child with a troublesome “imagination”? We’ve seen that done before … time and time again.

The filmmakers also resorts to several cheap scares (“cheap” being used to describe the jump-out-of-your-seat tactics which can be effective in any horror movie, good or bad), and every adult character becomes incompetent once the creatures are on the prowl. They should have just called the Orkin man.