Though overly long at almost 2 hours, this movie has some decent scares!
So i'm sure you have all heard the hype over this film, that's it's the next Insidious, that it's really scary. Well, they are half right. I'm not sure it's as good as Insidious, or let me re-phrase that...as "tight" as Insidious. There is a reliance on "jump" scares, but there is also a creepy unsettling mood that permeates this movie. The last time I felt a sense of dread like this was when I was watching The Ring. Overall, I don't feel like I wasted my money on a matinee. Synopsis time...
Ethan Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt, a crime author that has fallen on hard times. His last few books have not done so well, but he did do a true crime novel called "Kentucky Blood" that was very successful. In order to try to catch lightning in a bottle twice and "leave a legacy", Ellison decides to move into a house where an entire family was murdered in the backyard. He keeps this a secret from his wife Tracy (Juliet Rylance) and his two children Trevor (Michael Hall D'Addario) and Ashley (Clare Foley). The Sheriff (Nice to see Fred Thompson in a role again) and law enforcement are not exactly his biggest fans though. Well there is one guy that is a fan, the Deputy (played by James Ransone), and it kind of serves as comic relief..where there really is none. Ellison decides to expore the house and finds a box full of old tape and an old film projector upstairs. But he is horrified as he watches what appears to be family movies, but always end with someone holding the camera filming the murder of the family. In each case, a child has gone missing.
Ellison becomes obsessed with finding out the link to the murders and catches a very erie figure during one of them, then in all of them he sees the "face". Then he looks out his window and see's the face. The entire time this is going on though, we see him drinking whiskey constantly, and there is the idea that maybe he's just gotten a little too into this work. Especially when you hear noises and wake up on the couch holding a baseball bat. His wife is certainly worried and tries to get him to leave, but Ellison is adamant about writing the book that will establish his legacy and provide for his family. Things just get more unnerving, as the projector will turn itself on at night, and even the Deputy thinks Ellison should just leave because he's just gotten too close to the material. Moving into a house where murder was committed is getting to Ellison, or is it? What is the face he is seeing, and what are the symbols on the wall of every house that had a murder committed? What happened to the child that disappears from every crime scene? I will tell you that the answer to these questions is more than a little unsettling as the movie hurtles towards it's shocking finale.
Ok, first things first; the acting in this is solid. Ethan Hawke does an excellent job as the writer that is slowly becoming unhinged, or is he? Juliet Rylance also does a great job as the concerned wife/mother, who just wants what is best for everyone. The Deputy, well that i'm not so sure of. The movie is really dark, and he almost plays a comedic role...but i'm not sure it fits here. It kind of feels out of place. The children have very few lines, but what they do have is effective. Overall, I thought the acting was great, and had no problems with any of the performances.
The best parts of this movie are the actual films that Ellison views. They are very effective in the creep factor as we are essentially voyeurs to a murder scene. The juxtaposition between the family outings and then seeing them all helplessly lined up for slaughter is unnerving. And without giving anything away, the last film he watches of the original tapes, is the worst of the murders. When I realized what was going to happen, I really wondered if they were going to show that on screen! I'm not going to tell you that though..haha.
The cinematography is decently done, and the sound is used to great effect in the "jump" scares. But as mentioned before, it's more the sense of dread that envelopes the film that works the best. Bad things are happening to decent people and has Ellison brought it on his own family by being too ambitious and not knowing when to quit? As I have said, there are some decent scares here, and I felt the ending was spooky and unnerving, but it just takes a little bit too long to get there. It feels like it drags, and that's unfortunate, because it is a competently put together little thriller, with some excellent performances.
7 out of 10
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