Director: Joey Moran
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Supernatural
Plot:
After a series of strange incidents, a man and his wife come to believe the house has become haunted by a supernatural being and call in a professional ghost-hunting team to deal with the situation only to find the spirit more deadly than expected and forces a dark secret from his past to save them.
Review:
This was a surprisingly fun and enjoyable effort. One of the strongest aspects to the film is the fact that there's quite a lot of build-up here as to what's going on inside the house. The opening here with the startling from the alarm going off and the aftermath the next morning when it shows them getting mixed up with the events that occurred the night before and arguing with each other for no reason as the supernatural entity is around them influencing their decisions. The first time they spot the ghost in the house offers a fine jump-scare that's handled realistically and logically, and the fact that it spurs them into action following the attack on the daughter manages to offer this one with a lot of fine supernatural antics to get this one setup.
The film becomes quite a bit more fun and enjoyable when the ghost-hunting team arrives and everything spirals out of control. The ploy of getting the two opposing sides here, from his desire to protect his family against their desire to get a good TV show episode makes for some fine drama and conflict here. When it comes to the standout horror attack scenes featuring the group getting ambushed in the bedroom and having one team-member yanked into a closet right in front of the others and then upon attempting a rescue find themselves doused head-to-toe in their bloodsplatter in a truly amazing stand-out sequence that really works nicely here in terms of showing them being out of their element. Even the flashbacks showing their encounters while he was out of the house has plenty to like, keeping this one filled with enough to like in terms of blood and supernatural action to hold this up over it's flaws.
There are a few flaws here, mainly ranging from the utterly predictable and cliched setup involving the ghost hunters getting involved with the investigation into the spirit. Once again, there's the tired old ploy about the TV show trying to manipulate their footage simply to get a better episode, and the entire conversation that takes place after the first attack really undoes a lot of sympathy for them. With verifiable evidence that something's not right in the house with them being covered in the blood of their coworker, the fact that they want to carry on with the investigation in the name of getting good ratings simply is inexcusable and illogical, making this part of the film highly unappealing to get through.
The other real problem is a somewhat overlong and meandering finale that tends to go on far longer than it really should. This introduces far too much than what is necessary in these kinds of films, from the twist involving what the spirit is really after and what the entire purpose of the haunting was really about rather than the alleged setup that had been in play the entire time before by suddenly making the daughter the target all along, even throwing in the added flashbacks to help it along. It just adds way too much rambling nonsense to a film that didn't need it, makes the entire film feel like it's changing priorities are just way too scattershot to stay on one timeline and makes it run on a bit too long. Otherwise, there isn't a whole lot really wrong here.
Overview: *** 1/2/5
While the film does have some minor issues involved here with it's overlong running time and some problematic storytelling, the fact that there's a lot of enjoyable elements present here manages to make this a wholly entertaining effort. Give this a shot if you're a fan of these low-budget supernatural efforts or are curious about it, while those tired of the genre and it's conventions should heed caution with this one.
Comments
Post a Comment