Unbeknownst to them and during that recent vacation, Michael ended up falling into a cave and came across a series of stones once used by the Anasazi Indians to keep demonic spirits at bay. Now back in the family's suburban home, they start causing creepy things to happen, many of which are initially attributed to Michael and his condition. But when they escalate and things progressively get spookier, the parents eventually take the advice of Simon's wife, Wendy (MING-NA WEN), and bring in Native American healer Teresa (ALMA MARTINEZ) and her young adult granddaughter, Gloria (ILZA ROSARIO), in hopes that they can rid them of the spirits before it's too late and the family rips itself apart.

Go to just about any place in the U.S. and you'll be able to find a store or stand that will sell you a souvenir related to that locale. Beyond t-shirts, hats and such, I'm not sure people really want to display their glassware, placemats and such that are adorned with tacky graphics naming the place, but I'm guessing such giftware is a huge business.

Of course, sometimes people bring home things they shouldn't, usually in the form of items not for sale, both manmade and natural. That's the jumping-off point for "The Darkness," another in a long line of derivative horror flicks where telegraphed jump scenes outweigh true frights, evil takes its sweet old time manifesting itself to its full extent, families are too dumb to get out of Dodge early, and some sort of spiritual figure arrives to clean up the mess.

Here, an autistic boy (David Mazouz) finds some old Native American stones after falling into a cave-meets-long lost ceremonial "keep the spirits at bay" room. After bringing them home, his older, moody and bulimic sister (Lucy Fry) and marital discord suffering parents (Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell) start experiencing things that go bump, creak and such in the night. All of which leads to slow, pensive walking and sudden startles. And boredom and disbelief on our part . I mean really, what could have convinced Bacon and Mitchell to sign up for this boring mess? To quote Dana Carvey's Church Lady, "Could it be...Satan?"

By the time things escalate to the point that the "Poltergeist" type portal has opened and the boy has entered that with the demonic figures, you'll likely wish everyone else would join him so the portal could close and the end credits could roll. "The Darkness" never sees the light of being a good or even just moderately scary horror film and thus rates as only a 3 out of 10.