Starring Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat
Directed by Oren Peli
Directed by Oren Peli
Don't believe what you've heard. There's absolutely nothing scary about this movie. I'm not saying the film is awful by any means, I'm just saying it's not scary.
Katie and Micah (how convenient that their character names are the same as the names of the actors) are a young couple who are experiencing some paranormal activity in their house -- bumps in the night, lights and faucets turning on, etc. It turns out that since she was young, Katie has always felt some kind of "presence" around her and it seems to be getting worse. Micah decides to buy a camera and set it up in the house to see if he can catch any of the supernatural activity at work. The film, in turn, is made up entirely of the footage from Micah's camera a la The Blair Witch Project.
I will admit that I enjoyed the final thirty minutes or so of this movie quite a bit, but the first hour was just so slow moving. Seeing a door close by itself or a light turn on or a chandelier shake just isn't scary and it certainly doesn't provide enough tension to sustain itself for sixty minutes. And therein lies the film's main problem -- it is unable to maintain or build suspense in that first hour. Granted, the final half hour had some moderately cool scenes and was actually moderately suspenseful. Scary? No. But kinda cool to watch. Still, as a whole, it just didn't quite work.
The acting was okay. Considering that it's mainly just two folks onscreen, I didn't really get tired of them (although you could play a drinking game and likely get very tipsy if you took a shot every time Katie said "Turn off the camera!"...good Lord, that was said at least 15 times). I appreciated that the camera wasn't super shaky like Cloverfield, but the steadiness of the camera also seemed oddly boring at times.
If you want to see a really eerie movie, go rent Drag Me to Hell.
I will admit that I enjoyed the final thirty minutes or so of this movie quite a bit, but the first hour was just so slow moving. Seeing a door close by itself or a light turn on or a chandelier shake just isn't scary and it certainly doesn't provide enough tension to sustain itself for sixty minutes. And therein lies the film's main problem -- it is unable to maintain or build suspense in that first hour. Granted, the final half hour had some moderately cool scenes and was actually moderately suspenseful. Scary? No. But kinda cool to watch. Still, as a whole, it just didn't quite work.
The acting was okay. Considering that it's mainly just two folks onscreen, I didn't really get tired of them (although you could play a drinking game and likely get very tipsy if you took a shot every time Katie said "Turn off the camera!"...good Lord, that was said at least 15 times). I appreciated that the camera wasn't super shaky like Cloverfield, but the steadiness of the camera also seemed oddly boring at times.
If you want to see a really eerie movie, go rent Drag Me to Hell.
The RyMickey Rating: C-
you'd be straight up drunk after 15 shots over the course of 90 minutes. not tipsy. although maybe being wasted would make this movie scary.
ReplyDeleteI was almost unsure how it could be scary for anyone.
Spoilerness:
Yes the sheet moving was cool, but not scary. the only scream inducing moment could be the dragging of Katie, but even that was very deliberate and you could see it developing. and that's not to mention that you knew it was going to happen by logically deducing the steps the demon was taking. enter house, in house, enter room, touch, take, possess. etc.
the end scene wasn't great by any means, but it was okay. you knew she was coming back upstairs and you knew she'd do something to the camera since she was all demon-y and the demon didn't like the camera.
There was so much wasted time in this movie. so many useless scenes.
Maybe you just have to be stupid. There were people in our theater that thought the girl was shaking back and forth like crazy when the hours were fast-forwarding by. they didn't know how to read the time stamp i guess.
I could write more but i won't. it's frustrating that people think this is soooo good and sooo scary. it makes me dislike the parts of it i actually enjoyed.
You lost points for calling Drag Me to Hell eerier, brah.
ReplyDeleteIf only I could get the nerve to watch Drag Me to Hell again to see if it holds up...I'm just worried it'll be a let-down...so it sits in the dvd case next to my tv instead...
ReplyDeleteI had the nerve to see my favorite horror movie of the year a second time (out of the two horror movies I've seen.) Man up, Brosephine.
ReplyDelete