My parents always used to tell me, "Go to sleep. Don’t be afraid of the dark." And I used to think, "Are you f#$%ing nuts? The dark is the scariest thing out there." On January 21 next year Guillermo del Toro will most likely prove me correct. Variety is reporting del Toro’s newest Miramax feature, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, will release that day, and promptly scare the crap out of people. It is the first movie announced for the January 21-23 weekend, and one of the few remaining Miramax projects under Disney as the studio works to offload the specialty label.

The Troy Nixey-directed horror film stars Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison. It is based on the 1973 ABC television movie of the same name. In the original, a husband and wife move into a new house where the wife promptly opens up a p=Pandora’s box of ghosts and ghouls. In the del Toro remake, it is Madison’s character, a young girl, who unknowingly releases the creatures allowing them to haunt a house she has moved in to with her father (Pearce) and his girl girlfriend (Holmes).

By my estimation, nightlight sales will spike right around the January 21 release date for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. How else to keep out the monsters?