Spanish-American horror flick Darkness has been gathering dust for three years while Miramax decided what on earth to do with it. Boasting a wan performance from Oscar-winner Anna Paquin and lacking both scares and originality, its belated appearance is nothing to scream about. Director Juame Balaguero has all the right ingredients - evil spirits, haunted house, Satanic incantations - but no idea how to cook them, resulting in a stodgy and inedible stew that's a recipe for boredom.

American teenager Regina (Paquin) is none too pleased when her overworked father (Iain Glen) and overbearing mother (Lena Olin) relocate her and her younger brother Paul (Stephan Enquist) to a creepy old house in rural Spain. Regina tries to make the best of a bad situation, but suspects all is not well when her dad has a breakdown and her sibling starts complaining about malevolent forces lurking in the shadows. Hmm... could this have anything to do with those six children who were ritually sacrificed in the house four decades earlier?

"LAUGHABLY DIRE AND UTTERLY INCOHERENT"

Tediously talky in the first half and dependent on tired gimmicks in the second - oh no, the lights have gone out... again! - this poor man's The Others lurches from one bewildering sequence to the next with little logic and even less point.

The dialogue, the majority of it dubbed, is laughably dire, while the big finale is utterly incoherent. Maybe the plotline made more sense before 15 minutes were cut from Balaguero's original version. Then again, this is one movie you wouldn't want to last a second longer.