Newlyweds Cory and Sarah Morgan take Cory's 7-year old son Liam up to the country for some much needed family time. When it appears as if Liam has run away, psychological suspense becomes straight-out horror, as Sarah and Cory must now confront a sadistic cult-like family who have been hiding in the house all along and have taken Liam for themselves. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Jordan Barker
Starring: Peter DaCunha, Stephen McHattie, Katharine Isabelle and others
This is an OK enough movie but it still is definitely missing
something!
It's just a bit too simplistic for my taste. Not necessarily just with
its main premise but also the way its handling story elements and
certain characters. It bothered me that the movie wasn't really
following a true, clear, main plot line but what bothered me more was
that the movie wasn't all that engaging to watch, due to how it got
told and the way its main character got handled.
The whole way the main character is going through a transition is far
from subtly or all that likely really. She goes from being a good and
normal student, to a cold blooded sadist and murderer, who operates in
a very calculated manner and knows perfectly well what she is doing. It
kind of ruined some of the aspects about this movie, since it never
felt quite natural and convincing enough for me.
All this movie basically has and relies on is its shock value and that
value isn't all that high really to begin with. The movie seriously
isn't as shocking or groundbreaking as it seems to think it is. It all
too deliberate attempts to be as odd and shocking as possible with some
of its moments (without ever showing you anything really) but since
there is never really a good enough buildup to- or execution of it, it
kind of falls flat, at most occasions.
But believe it or not; I actually still liked the movie more than I
didn't. The movie luckily still come across as one that wasn't taking
itself too serious all of the time. At points the movie gets even quite
comical, especially with some of its characters, that occasionally pop
up in it. But this at the same time adds to the confusion on how to
take this movie. At times it feels as a social satire/black comedy, or
as simply a parody of the genre, while at others the movie feels like a
very serious one, that's trying to tell you a heavy, shocking and
realistic story.
It's a bit of everything and the film-makers intentions probably also
were to have a bit of everything in it. Only problem though is that it
doesn't always blend together too well and it will confuse most
viewers, on how to take this movie. But perhaps that's all intentional
as well. Perhaps the film-makers wanted people to simply make up their
own mind about it and decide for themselves what the movie is all about
and what it's trying to do and tell you with its story and main
character. But even even so, it just didn't always work for me, since
none of it gets ever handled in a truly provoking or engaging enough
manner.
It has lots of elements of a great and creative movie in it, without
ever becoming a great or effective enough movie for itself.
The movie features a quite ridicules concept and it isn't exactly made believable through its storytelling either. Seriously don't those parents notice how much their children's has changed to the worse? Who cares if they get good grades, why on Earth would any parent consent to this when they see how it affects their children's behavior and takes away their personality. Ugh, yeah well I know its just a movie but they could had done some more and better attempts to try and make the story just a little bit more probable.
The movie also has some more serious issues with its storytelling. At times the movie just jumps from the one moment to the other, especially toward the ending, as if they were rushing to finish the movie on time. The movie makes some leaps that make you go whoa! What happened in between? Or, how did they suddenly get there? The movie is of course also not really being helped by its weak editing. It's perhaps being equaled by the dreadful musical score of the movie, by Mark Snow. He has some good music in him, I mean after all he is the man behind the music and theme of "The X-Files" but he simply did an horrible job for this movie.
Also a problem with this movie is that there basically is too little interesting or spectacular happening. For a movie that presents itself as an horror movie, it's simply lacking on all fronts.
The most exciting stuff comes from Nick Stahl, who is the best acting within this movie. It makes it a real shame that half way through his character changes and he also for some reason more or less disappears out of the movie, while in the first half he still was being presented and handled as a main character. What the movie is further more lacking is a main villain. Bruce Greenwood's role is way too limited within this movie and his little mustache is way too distracting to regard him as a successful movie villain. It also makes it more or less sort of disturbing that his character- and his 'robots' are all being killed off in the end. It really didn't feel right to me that everyone of them had to die, as if they were already lost and doomed and there was no way they could had been changed back.
Not the worst movie you'll ever see but it will still feel like a waste of time.
