Since it first aired back in 1973 Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark has been proclaimed one of the finest and scariest features ever made for television and in the decades that followed, the film has gathered a strong cult following, culminating in a big-screen remake co-written and co-produced by Mexican genre filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro and directed by first-time feature director Troy Nixey.

A trailer for the upcoming film has just been released and you can watch it here below.

Del Toro collaborated on the screenplay (based on the original teleplay by Nigel McKeand) with Matthew Robbins, who had previously worked with Del Toro on the director’s first American film Mimic and whose past credits include co-writing and directing the 1980’s fantasy classic Dragonslayer and co-writing Steven Spielberg’s first feature The Sugarland Express. The plot for the redux follows young Sally Hirst (Bailee Madison) who goes to live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) in an ominous-looking house. Not long after arriving Sally attracts the attention of the house’s other residents, the ones that don’t pay rent, and these strange creatures want to take Sally away and make her one of their own.

Filmed in Australia, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark bears a slight resemblance to Del Toro’s 2006 masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth in that it involves a young girl from a broken home encountering dark forces but this time around the filmmakers look to be going for a straight horror feel, very atmospheric and visually striking.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark hits theaters on August 26, 2011.

Trailer

[Source: Yahoo!]