Way back when my children were infants Jeff and I had my Mom over to watch The Sign, the movie adaptation of The Dark is Rising. As we watched it, Jeff and I were complaining loudly about the terrible movie we were watching, and my Mom was horribly confused. I then blocked out the Dark is Rising movie from my memory for twelve years. No really, I’d forgotten how bad it is until we sat down to watch it as part of our Book and a Movie plans. Then I remembered the pain of this movie.
And yet, I’m inflicting it on you. Don’t you feel lucky?
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What is the Dark is Rising about?
The tricky thing here, this is actually a five-book sequence (totally worth reading the entire series), and rather than start with the first book to adapt as a movie, they went with the second book. It’s the one with the famous poem that so many kids memorized after reading it because it flows so well.
Will Stanton is the seventh son of a seventh son, and on his eleventh birthday, he is plunged into a quest for six magical signs to aid the Old Ones in a battle between Dark and Light.
It’s a great epic for young kids, and I highly recommend reading it. The movie….
The Dark is Rising movie
First, the movie isn’t called The Dark is Rising, no it’s called The Seeker: The Dark is Rising Movie. I actually think that last bit was added because everyone searches for it as “The Dark is Rising movie.”
Next, the movie has the same names, and Will is looking for the signs, but the plotline is different and there’s a really weird twist they throw into the end of the movie.
I’ll not tell you what it is, just in case you’re unfortunate enough to watch this movie. That being said, here come our:
Dark is Rising movie snacks
We actually read this book a few years ago despite it being listed as a seventh-grade book, I might need to move that down a few notches… So, this is early on in our books made into a movie snack plan, so I didn’t have my fancy labels, and we didn’t have the number of snacks we do now.
manuscripts- these are the
dogs– in the book, his dog is very helpful and keeps him safe, that being said, it wasn’t as present in the movie… so we used our favorite Scotty dog cookies for the snack
signs- we got some of the traditional pretzels and dipped them in a variety of candy melts (green, yellow, blue, and pink)
standing stones- I don’t know what these are actually called (it’s Nutty Buddy apparently), but we call them logs because we use them as logs so often, they were super prominent and important in the books….
scones- because there’s a lot of tea, so we, of course, had to have our favorite scone recipe, actually… I think I might make some scones this afternoon. We’ve got a bunch of blueberries again.
And that was our Dark is Rising movie night.
More Middle School Books Made into Movies to watch
I think A did not read The Dark Is Rising yet. I might get it for her for our upcoming trip to the East Coast! But I am guessing that we will skip the movie 😀
The series is well worth reading, given how fast she reads, she might well read all of them on the plane ride East.
The movie however is on my list of movies I’d love to erase from existence.