timothygartin

The filmmakers went with the found footage approach on this story. It's a story that has been done before, both as found footage and as not. This story was not written well for the genre. The big questions of "why are they filming this" and "how did this get filmed" are really unanswered throughout the movie.

I did like the lead actor, but the supporting cast was not as strong. Again, I think its mostly the writing. The supporting characters had little to no depth. The only supporting cast member I really enjoyed was Zimmer, the video friend. I thought he had some substance and the actor did a really good job with him.

The reveal and the end are a huge letdown. You see it coming a mile away and there is no scary edge or quality to it.

This was a solid, if not unremarkable, crazy backwoods people horror movie. I liked the set, which I understand is a real haunted house attraction in Kentucky. The setting had a lot of great atmosphere. I also liked the choice of music that played a significant role in the story.

Where I think this movie struggles in the acting by the leads and the story. The two main actresses don't do much more than scream throughout most of the story. Neither really does much to make her character different or memorable. In fact, the screaming was so annoying by the time we arrived at the climax of the story, that I did not feel bad for their disposition. The supportive acting wasn't so much acting as walking and swinging an axe. The bad guys had no development whatsoever.

This leads to the bigger issue - the story. It borrows heavily from the "House of 1000 Corpses" which itself borrowed from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and other slasher movies. The scheme is so complex that it makes the puzzles in "Saw" seem practical. If you think about why this haunted house exists or how it can sustain itself or how the killers could have video tapes of victims going back for years without anyone figuring this out, the story falls apart.

I watched the whole movie and it was kind of fun, but it is dumb as a box of hammers.

I liked the story. Even though I think the characters ultimately unraveled at the end and behaved in a way that is inconsistent with the setup, the villain was original and the story was new.

This movie borrows from the Dybuk Box legend and mixes in some Rumplestiltskin mumbo jumbo, but I think the story works. I also think that the setting really adds to the isolation and the story, so that was a good story and direction choice.

The acting and character writing is where I struggled with this movie. I didn't buy the development of the character of either the wife or the husband. The occultist friend was pulled right from every other horror movie. If these characters had been likeable or believable, I think this story would have been really good. They weren't, though.