“Darkness Falls” (*1/2 out of four) was a misbegotten murder melodrama about a troubled young detective (Shawn Ashmore) grieving for the recent death of his wife who everyone thinks committed suicide but he then begins to suspect that she was murdered and obsessively trails down all clues, leading to a father/son team (Gary Cole and Richard Harmon) of serial killers whom he swears to bring down. Tired story of serial killers and vengeance and murder doesn’t offer much that’s vitally new to the genre. No relation to the 2003 horror movie of the same time but owes quite a lot to “Death Wish” and (more to the point) “Mad Max.”