You Should Have left is a perfect, if slightly on the nose, title for a spook house movie. It’s what we all say in a haunted house movie and they just went and put it in on all the advertising. Just leave! If only the rest of the movie was self-aware, clever, or tightly edited enough.

The movie stars Kevin Bacon and Amanda Seyfried as a famous married couple… and, yes, their age difference is noted. She’s an actress and he’s known for more infamous reasons. They decide to take a vacation in a modern house in the old Welsh countryside where (say it with me) Not All Is At It Seems. Before you can say “Eek! A Haunted House”, strange shadows appear, jump scare music stings as people cross unexpectedly in front of the camera, characters have bad dreams they wake suddenly from, and things stop making sense.

The cast is good. Nothing wrong with Kevin Bacon or Amanda Seyfried at all and the little girl playing their daughter is very good. She has a heart-wrenching scene in a discussion with her mom early on that gave me hope we’d have some meat on this movie’s bones.

But, unfortunately, there’s not enough to the story and the spook house jive just gets old, repetitive and ultimately nonsensical. It just gets tedious as the movie just decides to trip out and loses whatever rules or reality the movie had built up. It’s like it’s stalling for time… time to get to that requisite 90 minute mark.

I kind of liked the final revelation… but we might have gotten there in a solid thirty to forty minute short film instead of this generic “what even is reality” wheel spinning.

So, yeah… the film has quality actors in a picturesque setting but that’s not enough to survive the script. It’s certainly not without merits and can be watchable for time. I can’t recommend this highly unless you just can’t get enough of spook house movies… or you have your Kevin Bacon scorecard out.

Score: 72