Also saw Lights Out, the new horror film about a ghost who only exists in the dark. Not a very original premise and not a very accurate one since she more seems to only exist in silhouette. If you can see her backlit by a lit room, watch out!
This is a pleasantly short and pretty good little horror movie. It kind of has a lot of generic scares but circumvents mediocrity by actually having good characters in an interesting family dynamic. If you’ve seen the movie The Babbadook (and you should), this is kind of a fun reversal of that. It deals with mental illness and a mom who is unstable and talking to the ghost and the child who is the sane one who is freaked out by this residential evil. There’s an older daughter who knows all about her mom’s instability and wants to rescue her little brother from the situation… and also from the ghost she has vague memories of from when she was a kid.
All of this family drama feels like its from a movie where the screen writer gave a damn about his or her characters. These are likable people, even the scuzzy-looking boyfriend character is more than just a cliche. I was also very pleased that I wasn’t able to exactly predict who would live and who would die and there’s some nice misdirection around how to get rid of the ghost.
It’s only too bad the scares aren’t on the same level. There are some good ones but it never really reaches the ratcheted tension I think it wanted. But it’s not bad and there are some really clever ways it plays with the use of light and shadow – when the ghost is present and when it vanishes due to light. This lead to a final confrontation that was far better than I expected.
This is a good, solid ghost story with something very rare in most movies, much less most horror movies: a good set of characters and a plotline that, while centered around a ghost, isn’t focused exclusively on it. I liked this movie and it didn’t overstay its welcome at about 72 minutes long.
Score: 81