DARK TOUCH

Nat (Marcella Plunkett) and Lucas (Padraic Delaney) live next door to a seemingly normal couple, whose young daughter appears to be a bit of a handful.

Little do they know that the kid in question, Niamh (Missy Keating) is being abused by her father while the complicit mother lurks in the background.

One night Niamh becomes particularly upset following more bedroom abuse and something inside her stirs. Whatever it is, it causes objects to move - aiming them violently in the direction of her callous parents. The night ends with the parents dead and their house blazing on fire. By the time the emergency services arrive, Niamh's best efforts to shield her baby brother from smoke have sadly failed.

As the police determine to find the intruders responsible for the bloodbath (Niamh's claim that the house went crazy doesn't carry much weight with the local guarda), Nat and Lucas agree to take the seemingly innocuous Niamh under their wing.

The girl is understandably surly. She also happens to bear resemblance to Stacey from TV's 'EastEnders' - but we shall not hold that against her. Little tell-tale signs as to her abusive past pass Nat and Lucas by (her flinching when Lucas removes his belt; the difficulty in getting her to disrobe and get in the bath), but Niamh herself is still painfully aware of it ... and starts to recognise similar signs in classmates at her new school.

Could it be that Niamh is starting to understand her unusual powers to the extent that she can put them to some use? Or will kind-hearted social worker Tanya (Charlotte Flyvholm) be able to penetrate the girl's defences and prevent her from further murderous rages?

Child abuse is always an emotive subject and writer-director Marina de Van gets some credibly effective impact from early scenarios in DARK TOUCH. Keating is very good in the lead role, and there are a couple of visually impressive moments later into proceedings which satisfyingly evoke VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED.

But the film has many flaws. For a start, the French director's perception of Ireland is laughably outdated. It's all dreary, sunless landscapes, dour kitchen sink existences and women who look like they're haunted by their own lack of make-up. Oh, and not a single person swears! Bejesus, that can't be right.

Day-for-night scenes later on in the film are so distractingly obvious that they pull the viewer out of the action at crucial moments Meanwhile Christophe Chassol's spooky strings-led score is over-the-top, signposting overly familiar scares in a way that would be more appropriate to an episode of 'Scooby Doo'.

Visually the film often looks great, and de Van does muster one or two stylishly atmospheric set-pieces. But her storytelling is too episodic to resonate emotionally; consequently, everything feels disjointed until the final 15 minutes, by which point it's too late to get involved in caring.

Arguably the film's strongest section is its first act, which would've stood quite well by itself as a 20-minute short film. Following that, there's no real explanation for anything that follows, and the action never approaches the opening hysteria.

I'm a fan of de Van (adored her since her early work in Francois Ozon films such as SEE THE SEA and SITCOM), so it's with sadness that I report that this eschews the subversive Cronenbergian edginess of her earlier IN MY SKIN and plays more with hackneyed mainstream tropes.

Shot on HD cameras, DARK TOUCH looks very good on Metrodome's region 2 DVD. The film's élan is naturally cool, with restrained colour correction and sharp icy visuals. The transfer renders these qualities well, offering a clean and crisp presentation complete with deep blacks and nicely natural-looking flesh tones. The picture is framed at 2.35:1 and has been enhanced for 16x9 televisions.

English audio gets the 2.0 stereo treatment and sounds very good, very evenly balanced and clear, for the duration.

A static main menu page leads into a static scene selection menu allowing access to the film via 12 chapters.

There are no bonus features, which is a bit of a shame. Regardless of the film's merits, it does look like it would've boasted a few good production stories - and personally I'd have been extremely grateful for an interview with de Van.

Metrodome's disc opens with trailers for THE BORDERLANDS (a very good film) and PAINLESS (a more mediocre proposition).

DARK TOUCH isn't terrible but should and could have been a whole lot better. Visual panache and a decent child performance carry it for the most part; otherwise events are a little too derivative and dull to engage. Come on, Ms de Van, you can do better than this...

By Stuart Willis