It is this kind of writing that gave me hope the entire 90-minute movie might be more off-the-wall than the norm for this kind of kids fare, but alas it is generally pretty conventional stuff as Dark takes Orion on a globe-hopping journey to show exactly why he shouldn’t fear him at all. “We didn’t get into Sundance - such a boys club,” Dark complains. Cut to the very black-and-white Meet Dark narrated by Werner Herzog with titles by Saul Bass. There is a line that only might have come from the ever-quirky mind of Kaufman, who is clearly also responsible for the film’s comedic highlight when, after the imposing Dark (nicely voiced by Paul Walter Hauser like he was channeling Seth Rogen) comes into Orion’s room, the creepy entity explains that after 500 million years of doing this job he tried to make a film that details why he is not so bad. For instance, he tries to get them to keep him awake late with a “bedtime story” by hauling out a large book, to which his mom replies, “I just don’t think we have time for David Foster Wallace tonight, Orion.” Once that is out of the way, however, it is all narrowed down to specifically a fear of the dark that truly has him freaked out even as his parents (Matt Delllapina, Carla Gugino) try to calm him down to no avail. Most of that is all laid out in a terrific 12-minute opening sequence as we see Orion (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) reel off his endless list of things that frighten him, detailing each in his trusty notebook. Basically the premise is intact, but Kaufman has expanded this world into Pixar territory where instead of Inside Out’s gang of Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Anxiety and Disgust we get entities like Dark, Light, Insomnia, Quiet, Sleep, Unexplained Noises, and Dreams to help tell the tale of Orion, a kid full of neuroses and unchecked fears of just about everything from clowns to bees to dogs to tall buildings to wondering if his parents will sell the house and move away while he is at school. Taking a page out of the Pixar playbook and animating entities turned into characters, DreamWorks Animation‘s latest feature Orion and the Darkrecalls ‘toons like Inside Out and Elemental as it tells the story of a young kid and his encounters with his greatest fear, the Dark.įortunately for adults who will likely have to sit through this with their kids, DWA was smart enough to hire Oscar winner Charlie Kaufman ( Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation) to take on the task of bringing Emma Yarlett’s book to the screen.