From a House on Willow Street

30 minutes into the movie I was so excited because I am a horror movie fanatic and truthfully only 1 out of 10 of them have been good lately. Maybe even 1 out of 20. I had such high hopes and was glued to the screen but as the movie went on, it became cliché and got ridiculous. *sigh* What a let down.

I just got fooled by the rating of this flick on IMDb. Just like "A cabin in the woods", this flick had a rating higher than 7 with more than 1,200 votes, which tricked me into giving 1h30 of my life into watching it. Big mistake. Terrible acting, wrong special effects, plot as cliché as one can be... This movie is ridiculous and does not deserve more than a 4.

Like many other reviewers, I saw the high early rating (7.9) and dove right in. I quickly regretted it. The premise was okay. To its credit, I thought there was some depth to the subtext. The director plays a lot with the "Primacy Effect" of our first meeting with the characters. The viewer is definitely expected to evolve their perception of who is good and who is evil.

Had they dwelt more on the psychological tension and made the kidnappers sit face to face with their victim, the movie may have made more of an impact. As it is, the role reversal created more plot holes than tension.

There are decent moments of body horror in the second half of the film, but I was too fatigued from all the unnecessary jump scares to care. There were several moments were the dialog / delivery took me completely out of the scene to wonder where is this set, do people speak like that in whatever setting this is? It's not the worst thing to stream, but you'd need to be pretty deep into your queue before this ever seemed like a good choice.

You know if you are into jump scares and just love any horror movie, I guess you'll enjoy yourself. Still I'm surprised by the overall high rating. And that is not only because one of the cast members distances him- or herself from the movie, but just the pure fact that the movie is filled with clichés. So many that it kind of started hurting physically.

So while I couldn't fault the movie for any technical aspect (and I guess that's plus that I like the actors in it, despite their horrible characters made me be kind in my rating), I don't feel that way when it comes to the script. It starts off kind of good and it does sort of maintain a certain mood. But it's so crazy what the characters do ... I mean yes I realize we wouldn't have certain movies, if characters behaved as if they actually had a brain, but still this stretches anything you'll be able to stomach. I'd even say I like the ending in a weird way, even though it hurt too ...

What I loved about the film is that they don't waste any time by jumping right into the action. It is really truly freaky in the beginning as we learn there is something sinister going on. Sadly, though, after a promising start, the film dwindles to loads and loads of credibility issues and 'been there done that' territory. They are trying just too hard to give every character a back story, as the demon feeds on their darkest secrets and fears. The reveal through the kidnapped girl's video diary is not believable at all and rather silly, actually. The way the gang immediately finds what is relevant to the story is just not credible. The film completely looses momentum towards the end as suspense makes way for reveal upon reveal. Some good visuals, though, and I did enjoy the satisfying ending.