Baba Yaga

A troubled teen is released into the custody of her estranged mother, but a demon from the past comes back to wreak deadly havoc.

Dramatic horror with a completely incoherent mythos, but an iron determination to ramp up the tension in every scene. The daughter's peril is introduced immediately with the urban myth key to the plot, then we switch to the mother's predicament, and nothing is normal or easy going - every scene infested with unsettling '80s synth. It ends with flash-back reminders of how the plot is supposed to make sense, culminating in a clumsy twist.

The mother is well played, with good emotion in her regret at being inadequate yet loving. The detective is poorly played, and there's hardly any point in the character of the husband. The initial feel is London soap opera, and at various points tributes to The Shining, Ju-On, and Time Bandits.

There's one interesting sequence in the photography, when the cliché of ghost passing in the background is repeated three times - otherwise it's ordinary. Bad judgment on the music, but it fits the story telling style of constant huffing and puffing to maintain interest.

Overall: meh.

The special effects are nice and the acting is passable, but this film is way too cliché and formulaic to be enjoyable.

The plot is the same as every single other "chick horror" movie ever. A pretty girl pisses off a ghost, has lots of scary visions, people don't believe her, she freaks out and acts crazy, at the end she discovers "a terrible secret". Bonus points if there's an old house and a mysterious magical person who knows all about the demon/ghost/spirit.

It's disappointing that a team of clearly creative and talented British people chose to use this tired clichéd formula instead of writing something fresh and new.

Too many horror films do this, it's predictable and boring and it needs to die. I refuse to believe that teenage girls are the only worthwhile demographic for horror.

The ever-likeable Katee Sackhoff strands herself in a well-made but trite Candyman knock-off that desperately strives to franchise itself out, but leans back on moldy haunted house tropes for the majority.

It's kinda strange though, who doesn't knock Twice when banging on a door? Kinda puts everyone in danger.

So Kastee Sackhoff plays an artist who's trying to rebuild a relationship with the daughter she left behind for her career, when her daughter becomes hunted by the town's urban legend.

The story lays out pretty cool, but the movie overall is very cheesy, but at the same time it can scare you (or at least the attempt to is decent).

Don't knock twice has good creepy sound effects and music that really help set that mood. It's amazing how two movies could have similar visuals yet one movie is able to scare you with those visuals and the other doesn't. Don't knock twice is the other. What this movie does have for you is some great sound that makes up for stereotypical and non scary visuals. The grunts the bumps and the music all work in the films favor Makes sense as the movie's sound is design to make that knocking on a door hunting, which it can be.

However, despite that little enjoyment, I would not really recommend going to see it. It's met to scare but it's best effort was not good enough.

http://cinemagardens.com

The Caradog's movie is trying to find a balance between being an indie horror movie and typical, wanting to be, scary pseudo-blockbuster.

Unfortunately, because of hesitancy of director, the movie fails, by being too much, or not enough, of everything.

We have great shots, cold atmosphere, really climatic music and sound effects. But on the other hand, film is attacking us with cheesy dialogues, not so original scenes (don't want to say clichés)and really rushed ending.

To end on a positive note, I must say, that movie is better than most of nowadays horrors, and it can scare you with a few scenes.