Bees, dogs, oceans, cliffs.
Murderous gutter clowns, cancer induced by cell phone waves, infected mosquito bites, clogged toilets.
Orion has plenty of fears, and they cripple him every day. His school counselor told him that documenting them might help him overcome them. But really, cataloging them all just seems to authenticate them in Orion’s eyes.
Fear of rejection prevented Orion from finally mustering the courage to say “hi” to Sally, his school crush. Fear of being crushed by falling model planets prevented Orion from turning in his permission slip for a planetarium field trip. And fear of humiliation prevented Orion from saying “yes” when Sally asked Orion if he’d like to sit next to her when that trip arrives.
Instead, Orion walks home in terror, fearing that today will be the day that his parents moved away without telling him while he was at school. (No such misfortune, he finds, as his parents come to console his anxiety once more.)
But not even they can dispel Orion’s greatest fear of all: the dark. When the sun leaves and shadows reign supreme, Orion finds little comfort in his bed.
It certainly doesn’t help when the darkness itself converges around him, forming into a pudgy, cloaked figure. Orion screams in terror.
“OK, that’s it!” the entity yells. “I’ve had it with you! Of all the kids who are terrified of the dark, you are by far the loudest, the most obnoxious, and frankly, the most hurtful.”
Huh?
That’s when the darkness introduces himself as … well … Dark. And he’s keen to make a deal with the kid whom he and other supernatural night entities refer to as “Night Enemy Number One.”
“You come watch me do my job for one night, and you’ll finally see that I’m nothing to be afraid of,” Dark offers.
And maybe, just maybe, if Orion can overcome his greatest fear of all, it’ll help him get past his lesser fears, too.
Orion’s parents encourage Orion to go to the planetarium, explaining that while being scared is a part of life, the trick is to not let your fear get in the way of living it.
“Otherwise, I never would have proposed,” Orion’s father says as an example.
Orion’s fear ultimately stems from desiring to know “the ending” of those fears. In a way, he fears uncertainty more than anything: If he knew those planets weren’t going to fall down on him—if he knew “the ending” wouldn’t involve bunch of broken bones—he’d have no trouble. Of course, to know the ending is impossible. And while Orion is eventually consoled to follow his parents’ advice in spite of the unknown, this is a good moment for me to pause and interject the comfort of the gospel, and that as Christians we do know the ending. For Christians, even death (or falling planets) is something we don’t have to fear.
We soon learn that Orion’s adventure with Dark is actually a story an adult Orion is crafting to help his daughter, Hypatia, overcome her own fear of the dark. Still, both Dark and Orion comfort each other in their respective insecurities, with Dark attempting to show Orion that he doesn’t need to be so afraid, and Orion reminding an insecure Dark that he has value, even if people tend to like Light better.
We see a few generations of parents consoling their children through their fear of the dark in loving ways. Orion in particular helps his future daughter by encouraging her to add to the fantastical story he’s crafting about his journey with Dark.
Dark isn’t the only entity Orion meets. Dark introduces Orion to other night entities, who are self-described as supernatural and immortal. These entities are Quiet, Insomnia, Sleep, Unexplained Noises and Sweet Dreams, all responsible for doing the things their names suggest. Dark further describes himself as “the coolest entity of all time” and the most well-liked entity, too. Sweet Dreams describes her process of granting restful dreams as “conjuring” within the target’s subconscious. We also meet Dark’s juxtaposing character, Light. All of these characters are simply a part of Orion’s story to Hypatia rather than meant to be seen as canonical entities in Orion’s world.
But Orion (the child in the story and perhaps the adult Orion himself) takes a more depressing view of the supernatural. He believes that, in real life, once you’re dead, you’re dead. He believes that death is “like nothing,” and it terrifies him. He also calls reincarnation “wishful thinking.” As he discusses his atheistic belief, we see him reading a book called Nihilism vs. Existentialism For Kids. Later, he calls back his personal beliefs to help Insomnia keep someone awake—planting a thought in a man’s mind: “What if life is a cosmic accident and my existence has no meaning?”
Orion, Hypatia, and (in the future) Hypatia’s son, Tycho, are all named after figures related to astronomy. Orion, of course, is named after the Greek myth regarding the huntsman Orion, while Hypatia and Tycho are references to historical astronomers.
We hear a reference to evolution: Hypatia states that fear is simply an evolutionary adaptation.
In describing what daytime is like to the night entities, Orion explains that “it’s almost psychedelic” when everything is lit up and colors pop.
After Sleep causes people to fall asleep, she kisses their foreheads before she leaves, though this, of course, is not meant to be sexual.
Orion runs from a couple dangerous scenarios while he dreams. We’re told that while he can’t get hurt in the dream, he will die in the real life if he dies in the dream.
In these dreams, a giant version of his school bully attempts to crush him, and a black hole threatens to suck him in.
In the real world, Orion nearly falls to his death. Two angry men push each other.
Sleep causes people to fall asleep through various violent actions: she smothers one with a “magic pillow,” and she uses what’s implied to be chloroform to cause a woman to pass out. She’s about to hit a baby with a sleep-inducing hammer when Orion intervenes.
Orion is bitten by mosquitoes in a visualized fear. Various animated drawings in Orion’s fear journal depict violent scenarios, such as his arm falling off or he and his classmates being crushed by a rolling model planet from a planetarium. “Murderous gutter clowns” constitute another fear of Orion’s, and so does punching his school bully in the nose. (He worries that the punch might puncture the bully’s brain and kill him.)
[Spoiler Warning] Late in the film, Dark decides to wait for Light in the hopes that he, too, can join his friends in the daytime. However, he is fully aware that doing this will likely kill him, and when Light passes over him, he disintegrates.
God’s name is used in vain seven times. In addition, we hear one use of “h—” and one instance of “crap.” Words like “heck” and “jerk” are used occasionally.
Two adults clean up glasses of wine from which they were drinking.
Orion uses the bathroom, and he recounts how one fear is that he’ll clog the toilet, causing the toilet water to flood the whole school. Someone yells “hold on to your butts” before taking off at a high speed.
While the other night entities have understandable purposes in helping people fall asleep, Insomnia and Unexplained Noises only seem to cause distress to people, either by keeping them awake at night with haunting thoughts or by scaring them through creepy noises.
Emma Yarlett’s children’s book Orion and the Dark is a rather easy read.
It, like the Netflix movie, tells the tale of a young boy named Orion who has so many fears that the darkness itself comes down to reassure the boy; to teach Orion that the places and sounds he’s so afraid of aren’t as bad as he thinks they are.
Unfortunately for Netflix’s adaptation of the tale, it’s not exactly enough content to fill a whole film. That’s probably why its movie counterpart has a more extensive plotline—one that includes other supernatural entities, too.
Orion and the Dark doesn’t go beyond its TV-Y7 rating, but parents will want to consider a few issues before watching, especially the film’s occasional spiritual themes: namely, that Orion espouses an atheistic worldview—and his story about night entities may put a pause on things, too.
What’s more, the film includes a couple moments of peril (and Sleep’s rather violent ways of knocking people out), and it has a surprising number of misuses of God’s name, too.
Orion and the Dark comes with some positive messages about not allowing our fears to prevent us from living our lives. It talks about our inherent value, too—a message that may certainly stick with children and resonate with adults. But the film’s darker issues cast a shadow on Orion and the Dark.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
