According to those who know, the movie doesn’t follow the book that it’s based on (the second book of Susan Cooper’s, The Dark Is Rising Sequence), but I got some enjoyment from the innocence and soppiness of Will, his sister Gwen, his infatuation with the town’s pretty girl, and even Will’s stereotypical brothers. But the horror and fantasy parts of the film were as formulaic as the fact that Will is the seventh son of a seventh son; and Will’s ability to step through time is incidental to the story.