After watching this movie I have come to the conclusion that ghost story type horror films are probably my favorite. Of course nothing can compare to the ultimate in ghost haunting fun that is Poltergeist but I still for some reason get a kick out of things that are supernatural.
The Campbells have recently moved to a house in Connecticut so that they can be closer to the hospital where their son, Matt, gets his treatments for cancer. Matt also looks like Robert Pattinson except that he has cancer instead of being a vampire. Soon they realize they may not be alone and finding out that their house was once a mortuary doesn't really help things. It is soon uncovered that some very very dark things happened in that house and the spirits there are pretty pissed.
So what I found to be genuinely creepy but not scary just creepy, was all the mortuary stuff. I'm sorry but after finding out that your bedroom was where they prepped bodies for burial why would you stay there at all? Especially once you found out that the mortician did a little more than normal prepping....? All plot-holes aside, the discovery of what actually went on in the house was pretty creepy. The carving of the symbols into the dead bodies, finding out most of the coffins were filled with sandbags, cutting off dead people's eyelids..and storing them in a little box. It was all very nicely creepy.
The scares however left little to be desired. Sure it's always creepy to see a figure suddenly appear in a mirror and then disappear or to see a bunch of chairs stacked horribly on their own- but those things have also been done before. The scares were also always accompanied by my least favorite form of scare tactic, a scary jolt of music. The only time I really jumped was when Virginia Madsen was in her room and then turned on the light and a scary burned face ghost was in her face- but that was a pretty cheap scare.
I had a lot of problems with certain areas as well. The drunk Dad scene was awful and really unnecessary. There was also way way too much Jesus and God shit going on. And the end was really confusing. I mean what was really going on there anyways? Although I did really like the axing of the walls and all the dead bodies spilling out- very nice touch.
But other than that I really had a hard time liking this film. I guess I'm just the ultimate Poltergeist fan but I can't help but be truthful. Poltergeist was a much more believable movie because the "ghosts" weren't in your face all the time. Their presence was very subtle and that made Carol Anne's taking all the more scary.
The story was interesting but I didn't feel like they took it as far as they could. The whole explanation of what the mortician guy was up to was a little heavy on the research. That girl had to have had all the time in the world to find out all that information from so long ago. Old maps? Yeah right. Although there wasn't a crazy twist ending like that Matt hallucinated everything in his head or something completely lame so that was good. But also once again the true story thing is a total sham. It was just a family who said they had a ghost and moved out....2 years later. Most people think they were just a bunch of whack jobs. So whomp whomp on that one.
All in all I would say skip this one. It'd probably be fun at a sleepover if I was 14 years old but now it's all just smoke and mirrors to me. Better luck next time Edward Cullen with cancer.
2 comments:
Still, nothing comes close to the symmetrical book stacking ghosts of Ghostbusters.
Hahah that is so true. That was inanimate object stacking artistry at it's best!
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