The movie gets right to the creepiness when Casey (Odette Yustman) is taking a jog when she sees a weird kid in the road. In a flash, the kid becomes a dog and the dog goes off into the woods. She follows and finds a baby buried in the ground. Then she wakes up. It was a dream. She consults her friend who is into ghosts and superstitions to see what it was all about. Then one night while babysitting, the little boy she is watching starts saying weird stuff and smashed her in the eye with a mirror. After this she starts seeing weird visions of the little boy from the dream. She finds out she had a twin that died while still in the womb, and apparently an evil spirit wanted to take him over. It is written and directed by David S. Goyer. A few minor scare scenes here and there but other than that it uses every standard horror movie cliché of recent times. I was unimpressed.
Despite the terrible name of Odette Yustman, she is easy on the eyes and did a good job as the scream queen of this flick. She actually resembles Megan Fox so she should start getting some better roles eventually. The supporting cast of Cam Gigandet as the boyfriend and Meagan Good as the best friend are not built up enough to even care about. The major problem with the movie was the script. A creepy kid, ghosts in the mirrors, crazy crab walking ghost people, weird old lady with ghost information, lots of bugs, etc. That’s like stereotypical horror. Ever since The Ring and The Grudge capitalized on the creepy ghost kids, its been a staple in 90% of the crap horror that comes out. And Alex Aja just did a movie about spirits in mirrors. I’m a huge horror fan and I cant even stand half the junk that comes out in this day and age.
I had a little bit of faith in this movie being that its from David Goyer. The man wrote The Crow: City of Angels, Dark City, the Blade trilogy, and his bread and butter Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. It looks like he didn’t even try on this one. I wanted unique and I got anything but that. Not even a cameo from Gary Oldman could save this one. Yes, I said cameo because he only appears in the final 20 minutes of the film. Although he has some great moments during the exorcism scene. But like I said, overall Goyer disappoints. Yustman looked nice in her undies but that’s pretty much the only positive in this thing.
IMDB – 5.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 12%
Movie Wiseguys – 4/10
January 20, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Nice read. I have read a lot of mixed reviews, but most seem to be pretty down on this film, which is disappointing. I saw a long preview in the theater a couple of months ago and it looked like it would be one of the best horror films in a long time. Instead it is seems to be more cheap junk. I saw the Yustman panties scene in the previews so now there is no reason to check this movie out.