If you want to be super depressed, then watch Dark Touch. Netflix’s summary of Dark Touch gave away too much or I’ve watched too many movies so I figured out the mayhem’s cause immediately, but the reason for that mayhem as implied by the unfolding events and explicitly suggested by one of the character is far more serious than any viewer casually looking for a scary, entertaining movie is prepared to watch. The reason is far graver than most movies that handle the subject head on can handle so I’m not sure if horror was the appropriate way to tackle the subject. Dark Touch suffers from hinting at several tropes and plot devices before landing on one: is it a ghost, a haunted house, a poltergeist, telekinesis, etc.?

SPOILERS

Dark Touch deals with child sex abuse and the child happens to be like Carrie. Dark Touch does effectively show how the community spectacularly fails her even when people mean well. Unfortunately Dark Touch is utterly bleak. I don’t think that a happy ending is necessary, but by the end, the abused child becomes a tragic monster, and her distorted view of all events dilutes her credibility, which we need in order to believe that her parents did abuse her instead of wondering if the parents just responded poorly to her powers. Dark Touch is strong in atmosphere, but not focused and inadvertently demonizing abused children. Perhaps Dark Touch needed more establishing shots in the beginning to introduce the characters before her powers emerged.