The preponderance of the length is an interesting drama induced thriller about an innocent little girl getting drawn into a quagmire of murder and what abyss of darkness that would bring shortly after finding a necklace at the dump. I think most would agree it's a cool idea.
The story has a promising plot, with characters that actually make sense (although some were only half baked), great cinematic look and locations, with smart casting choices too. David Lee Smith (CSI Miami guy) does a vey beautiful job portraying the father. And seeing Linda Blair in a cameo scene was like a breath of fresh air.
The girl playing the lead does a pretty decent job too. She's just easy on the eyes and very likable. Did anyone else think she looked a little like a mini version of ex-Sunset Beach babe Susan Ward with longer hair? The plot was easy enough to follow but held my attention and climaxed in an interesting finale with the two mothers mirroring one another in an attempt to save their daughters.
The performances were like a mixed bag of Jelly beans. While most of it was decent, some lines seemed recited and less felt by most of the kid actors in some of the longer scenes.
One of my problems with this was dragging a few scenes a bit too long after the point has already been made. Should've kept the tension going. This happens in like 2 or 3 scenes (one being the classroom scene- like we get it, you see the word garbage in your book while everyone else sees it garage; cool idea, but then it goes on for too long. It kind of takes you out of that tension a little. And this evil Eva girl needs to be expelled, not sent to the principal's office. I was rooting for the ghost to kill her already. Not sure what her problem was? But she was pushing it and the teacher kept hushing her instead of kicking her out right from the start. Public school much?
The movie has its faults and I admit I found aspects of the climax to be a bit unsatisfying, but over all this was a good film with so much promise and talent. There's a scene where the lead actress rides her bicycle to the murdered girl's deserted house, and the style and tone of that whole sequence reminded me of the scene from Mulholland Drive where Naomi Watts ventures out with Rita and go to Diane's apartment, and break in through an unlocked window. I found it unsettling and nostalgic. Also her breaking into the garage reminded me a bit of a scene from The Ring. Those scenes were much better than the longer sit and talk scenes. Those had a lot of funny moments too and smart lines, but were just a tad long.
The dreamy abstract scenes were really cool and fun to watch, and the music that accompanied was chilling, and soft where it needed to be. So it felt like it was another character on its own. The last 10 minutes of the movie felt like it was trying to rush its end, unfortunately.
Overall, I did enjoy watching it and I would say I have a strong urge to see more of what director Yesser Laham has to offer in the future, especially knowing that this is his first directorial debut. So for those people who bash this one but give other up and coming indie films with hardly anyone recognizable a pass, you're being unjust. Good movie, yes. Scary? Not really. Worth seeing? Yes, definitely. We've seen better, but we've certainly seen way worse from first time directors. A solid 7/10 from me.
