Watch the Spooky Trailer for Guillermo Del Toro's 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark'

Friendly advice from the Sleepless One, folks: don't watch a Guillermo del Toro flick right before bed. If you have a heart condition, don't watch a Guillermo del Toro flick with the lights out.

It isn't that he's some horror maven - not in that traditional Wes Craven or Clive Barker sense, where he would dwell persistently on what will most effectively scare the collective human waste out of audiences.

It's more that he has this way with imagining visuals that will stare back at you when you close your eyes. Whether it's either of the "Hellboy" movies or in particular the unsettling "Pan's Labryinth," the things he imagines are sometimes just a little...yeeeeesh.

But hey, bright side: at least when he writes a movie "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark," I have a pretty good idea what I should expect. Young Bailee Madison plays a girl who moves in with her father, played by Guy Pearce, and then befriends some ugly creatures that live beneath the home's stairs.

She's fascinated at first, but then things predictably take a turn for the dark and sinister. Katie Holmes plays the father's girlfriend.

Watch the Trailer for "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark":

You know something? I stand sharply corrected. After watching that trailer, Del Toro plays fear like a fine violin, and props for someone finally issuing a horror trailer that doesn't over-expose the big bad and shows me just enough to get my money.

Well-played, sir.

"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" is directed by Troy Nixey from a Del Toro script, and hits theaters August 26.