Director: David Jung
Year: 2014
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After losing his beloved wife, a man determined to make a mockery of the paranormal slowly begins to suspect that he’s being enveloped by supernatural forces out to play with him for tampering in their domain and must try to remain in control to save his family from the demons.
Review:
This here wasn’t all that bad of an effort. One of the few solid aspects of this one is the rather creepy work done here in regards to how the supernatural rituals are conducted. The variety of different performances conducted here, from the opening showing him subjected to the ritual where he has to be tied down and subjected to the presence of the demonic figure flashing over him to the encounter at the graveyard where he’s trapped inside the coffin in the graveyard where he confirms the situation with his wife that propels him to keep going deeper into the world of the black arts, give this one plenty of starting points to get going later on with more intense sequences.
Those are more prominent in the second half, where it abandons much of the rather stylish build-up in favor of more overt and obvious genre tropes. This relies specifically on the ranting and contortion he displays while possessed which has some traditional moments here, from how he freaks out on the daughter and chases her around the house to the rather enjoyable series of chase scenes featuring the deformed victim chasing others around in rabid fashion. It’s quite thrilling to see this as it adds a different vibe to the film which is quite fun to see play out.
That these are shown to come after the work done to showcase the skepticism he exhibits early on, from treating the different rituals with a sense of disdain or outright mockery where he’s not surprised at all that the process doesn’t work, creates a nice opening to then slowly lead him into far more dangerous rituals that actually do manage to prepare this one for the far more deadly preparations. As he gets swallowed up by these forces the deeper into the film and running through a wide range of experts and their treatments, it leaves quite an impression. These are what really help make this one enjoyable.
However much good these positives are, the fact that this one is still quite flawed is quite apparent. The film’s main problem is that it just doesn’t do much of anything for such long stretches of time as he stands around trying to come to terms with the effects of the possession. A large majority of these scenes aren’t in the slightest bit scary or chilling, and the fact that almost all of these are committed with the first-person camera technique examining the fake documentary approach of the whole film really takes this one down considerably by rendering most of the actions quite lame and blase.
That the format itself is the real problem here with the majority of the film not in the slightest bit interesting as when it focuses on the guy going around with the camera interviewing various practitioners of these rituals or showing the daily life with his family as these really didn’t need to be filmed in that manner to have their impact. It just comes off as unnecessary and just really makes this all the more confusing as to why it chose that format. Still, these are really the only real detrimental angles with this one.
Overview: ***1/2/5
While it’s not perfect by any account, there’s still more than enough to enjoy here that it manages to really work well enough for what it has to offer. Give this a chance if you’re interested in supernatural or paranormal genre entities or find this one interesting, while those looking for something more than just these run of the mill spookshow films should heed caution.
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