The Changeover

Timothy Spall counts for a good 5 of those 7 stars. He plays the sinister bad guy absolutely perfectly.

The rest is...flawed. There are some great moments, great ideas, great little bits of dialogue, but it's so disjointed and with so many bits that take away from the good that it feels a shame.

I don't know if it's the writing, the directing or the editing, but at some point it went wrong and a good idea lost it's flow.

Nonetheless, if you're a fan of the genre, I'd recommend it

When I saw the name Timothy Spall, I thought this was going to be great, surely such a great actor would only sign up to a great film right, wrong? Him apart it is a poor film, I've not read the book, but I'll judge the film based on what I've seen. Quite simply put, the ideas and plot are excellent, and rather original. What it lacked sadly, was any pace, urgency, tension or real threat, it's another so called horror movie that is advisable for people up to the age of fifteen. Spall is the only real positive, but he's wasted here. 4/10

Young adult book adaptations into sickly movies have been a thing for a while now, from Twilight to the Host to Divergent to Hunger Games and beyond. Here we see New Zealand have a go at it, and it's the same as the US tends to deliver.

Telling the story of a girl who must face an evil force in order to save her little brother this is a witchy themed thing, and the above description of sickly most definitely applies.

Starring Timothy Spall and Lucy Lawless I'm being a tad generous here, it's a really quite bad film.

You see it's your usual teen angst vs less than normal love interest vs nonsensical convoluted plot hole ridden concept. To make matters worse the two leads are awful! Nicholas Galitzine is your stoic dull mysterious brooding "Hunk" and Erana James is the Kiwi Kristen Stewart and has the acting ability of a brick. The two of them pick one facial expression at the start and continue it for the full duration of the movie.

If you like your schmaltzy teen angst nonsense then you might enjoy this, otherwise steer clear.

The Good:

Spall is oddly on form

Decent soundtrack

The Bad:

So much teen angst!

The two leads have the emotional range of a fart

This film legit reviewers/ratings probably average to 2 out of ten stars after discounting shill reviews. It is narrative train wreck. It is also a significant, in fact profound dumbing down and making "safe" of what was a great teen novel.

Not an amazing film but definitely not a bad one either. I liked the plot as it was a bit original. It not scary but has it's creepy moments. Definitely worth the watch