Cons: Made for people with thin skins, movie loses its way at end.
The Bottom Line: This is like a scary movie lite, great for girl friends and younger kids who are new to the horror genre, bad for people who want a boogeyman.
This movie dives into the story during the beginning credits. We see dreadful obscured things involving children and a ominous blue tinted circular window. All the while, a child is being interrogated, and we see several quick shots of a boy running away through the woods. He is obviously the Boy Who Got Away, and he cannot remember what exactly happened to the other children.
Then the credits end, and we are introduced to our main character, played by Anna Paquin. She is the oldest sister in a family who has just moved to spain, to an innocent looking house (but soon we see that ominous circular window in the hallway).
This movie tries hard to push the characters of the people in the house, the mother who wants everything to be alright (Lena Olin) the cool son who is happy with colored pencils, until something under his bed starts eating them (Stephan Enquist), the father who seems so relaxed and happy until he falls apart, which is played excellently (Iain Glen).
All the actors do their best, but the movie never delivers on it's promise. When I go to see a horror movie (even a PG-13 one) I expect to get a good look at the boogeyman by the end of the movie - but in this movie, the evil is just a bit player - we spend all our time half glimpsing spooky things out of the corner of our eye, and watching the people react. Even when the brother is repeatedly attacked in his room, we never get more then a slight glimpse at what is causing his bruises.
The first 60 minutes of the movie would have been perfectly done if by the end the movie had trotted out all the scary things that we kept glimpsing so they could attack the characters, or could talk about who they are, or something, but instead we get a weak explanation from several weird characters, but it left me unsatisfied.
There are many plot holes in the story as well, but going into them would reveal a great deal about the movie's surprises, and they didn't really bother me, I expect some inconsistencies in horror stories, but I also expect some monsters.
This is a good horror movie for the younger audience, but if you are older than 16, your jaded mind might yearn for "House on haunted Hill" or "13 Ghosts" or even "House"
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