THE TOWN of Darkness Falls, New England, has been cursed for the past 150 years by the spirit of Matilda Dixon, a local woman who was unjustly hanged for the murder of two children.

Ever since, her ghost has terrorised the youngsters of Darkness Falls, murdering the little ones in their beds on the night they lose their last baby tooth.

As a boy, Kyle Walsh (Chaney Kley) barely survived his nightmarish encounter with Matilda Dixon, and has been locked up in the secure confinement of a psychiatric facility ever since.

He has survived ever since, his nerves frayed, by surrounding himself in the one thing Matilda fears the most: light.

When his former childhood sweetheart Caitlin (Emma Caulfield) and her young brother Michael (Lee Cormie) become the latest targets of Matilda's evil, Kyle abandons his cosy padded cell and ventures back to Darkness Falls to vanquish the cackling crone once and for all.

Darkness Falls is a contrived yet somewhat entertaining slice of horror hokum, putting a ghoulish spin on that most benevolent of childhood icons, the Tooth Fairy.

Director Jonathan Liebesman orchestrates a few genuine shocks, including the opening set-piece rewinding to Kyle's childhood, before plunging the entire town into an electrical blackout to facilitate the special effect-laden finale in a lighthouse (light is the one thing that can kill Matilda).

The cast give their lungs a good workout, screaming at every bump in the night, and stupidly make statements like: "It's alright, I think she's gone" shortly before they meet a grisly end.

The screenplay, thankfully, has a good sense of its own preposterousness, as when the town's last surviving cop, faced with death at Matilda's clawed hands, screams, "All this over a tooth!" Quite.

Animatronic and computer generated special effects used to bring Matilda to life are quite impressive, although when we finally get to see the ghoulish spectre, it's a bit of an anti-climax: she's not particularly scary and seems to be suffering from a nasty bout of eczema.

No wonder she's in a perpetual rage, poor love.

Rating: 6/10