Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Screenplay by: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Karen Gillan, Brenton Thwaites
Rating: 4 out of 5
The thing is, I wasn't really scared that much! Emphasis on 'that much'. It was a bit scary, but there was more suspense and just general curiousity as of what is going on. There was this major thing that I really have to give credit to the creators for – There was little to no disturbing music to support the intensity of the scenes. It was nothing like The Shining, for example, where there is loud and frightening music as a background noise of each scene. All you could hear during those moments was a really silent 'dum dum dum'. Which was really pleasant for me. Some music really just makes me want to plunge my fringers into my ears and hide under a duvet.
The next reason why I wasn't too scared was the fact, that there was no murderous spirit causing all the murders. No spoiler by the way, this is clearly stated in the film almost at the beginning. Personally, I'm not really that scared of murderers. I usually check for monsters and ghosts under the bed. But I was really scared that a demon would be the culprit here. But luckily, it really wasn't. It was the mirror and a combination of psychology and human fault, which was an unbelievably interesting thing to watch.
When you get far enough though, the plot lines of the younger and the older siblings start to merge. Suddenly, they can see themselves standing around the house, doing things they never remembered doing. At this point, it gets a bit freaky, but mostly confusing. The film generally is very open to interpretation and just any thinking in general. You have to keep up with a lot of details and mostly, it is just very hard if the main characters are hallucinating or not. So while your passive part of the brain is just sitting there with its mouth open, the active part is just wondering how did that happen and what did they just do. And since I'm always confused, this got me confused even more.
I watched this horror film because of Karen Gillan. And I wasn't really disappointed. Her performance was very good and I hope we're going to see even more of her. There was this one trait about Kaylie that just annoyed me through the whole film and that was her calmness, sometimes even transitioning to excitement when it came to paranormal stuff happening. While you, as a spectator, just KNOW that if this happened to you, you would probably just flip out and run or do something not nice to your beloved pair of trousers, Kaylie just keeps her shit together (pun intended) and just stays there, mumbling how amazing that sight was. It wasn't amazing! It was nerve-wracking! And do I really have to say that I miss Karen's Sco'ish accent? Bring it back!
Overall though, I really have to say that this really is not the scariest horror film around. Or well, not for me, really. So I would quietly recommend it for people to see. Especially if you love plot twists, because this one is full of them and they all will make you crave more. And to be quite fair, I didn't even think it was that long. At the end, all of us agreed that 'it could have gone like this for a longer time, because it was cool'. 'Nuff said.