Don't Knock Twice

Nothing to write home about, but the scary scenes made me jump. The ending is a bit annoying , but not a bad watch when bored.

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 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.

Worth a watch. Good storyline, good twists and keeps you guessing! Some scary parts.

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.