Jason Blum

While it's great to see M. Night Shyamalan return to the twisty horror genre, his use of found-footage leaves the film feeling like a decent premise with nowhere to go. Presented as a documentary made by a teenager, the movie is relentlessly uninteresting, only watchable because of a few mild jolts and a blackly comical freakishness. Otherwise, the characters are too thinly drawn, and the story too gimmicky.

It opens as a single mother (Kathryn Hahn) reconnects with her parents on Facebook after 15 years estrangement. Instead of going home to see them herself, she books a holiday with her new boyfriend and sends her teen kids, cynical Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and clownish Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), to stay with Nana and Pop-pop (Deanna Dunagan and Peter McRobbie). But as Becca and Tyler videotape the experience, they begin to worry about their grandparents' sanity. Maybe it's just old age, or perhaps they are "sundowners", pensioners who go a bit mad at nighttime. And as things get progressively bizarre, both of them begin to worry that perhaps there's something locked in the basement that Nana and Pop-pop don't want them to see.

Everything on-screen is shot on cameras supposedly wielded by Becca and Tyler, although several scenes are implausible or frankly impossible. Shyamalan does a nice job creating a creepy vibe, then throws things suddenly into the frame to make the audience jump. But there isn't a single moment of proper suspense, mainly because it's all played for laughs: as if senile old people are hilarious. Until they become menacing, of course. Shyamalan pushes this idea with a very heavy hand, attempting to manipulate the audience's response by slowly dribbling out revelations that aren't particularly clever or surprising. And through it all, there's the nagging sense that nothing about the script holds water, starting with a mother's willingness to send her kids on their own to stay with parents she has avoided for a decade and a half.

Continue reading: The Visit Review

As the ghoul from the 2012 horror hit stalks a new family, this sequel's sharply well-crafted set-up leaves the hackneyed conclusion feeling very disappointing. Up until the trite horror finale, the film is a terrific mix of complex characters and twisted relationships, with a palpable sense of underlying menace. But instead of grappling with the ramifications of the human drama, the screenwriters opt for simplistic violence instead.

The dorky deputy (James Ransone) from the first film has left the force but is still determined to stop the horror from happening again. Then he arrives at the "infected" farmhouse and finds single mother Courtney (Shannyn Sossamon) hiding out there with her feuding pre-teen sons Dylan and Zach (played by real-life siblings Robert Daniel and Dartanian Sloan). And her abusive husband Clint (Lea Coco) wants custody. But the boys have already been contacted by the creepy gang of ghost kids who have horrifically murdered their families and documented this in home movies that they show to Dylan each night. To appease the boogeyman, Dylan needs to do the same, and if he can't, they might be able to use Zach.

Frankly, Clint is a much scarier monster than the sinister spirit lurking in seemingly every dark corner in this movie. And Zach has learned from his dad how to be a seriously cruel bully. Director Ciaran Foy generates intensity in both the real-world and supernatural elements of this story, inventively creating visually stylish freak-out moments that have genuine peril attached. In this situation, the actors create strikingly authentic characters, from Ransone's likeably goofy deputy to Sossamon's steely, tenacious mother hen. And the Sloan brothers add a superb sense of sibling tension, mingling anger and frustration with real emotion. So when things begin to snap between all of them, the film becomes genuinely heart-stopping. Then the ghosts take over and it's not quite so thrilling.

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Marketed as a horror-thriller, this sharply well-made film is actually a bleak drama with a strong message about bullying. Actor turned writer-director Joel Edgerton creates a vividly creepy atmosphere as he digs into the perceptions and motivations of three central characters, and he finds plenty of opportunity to unnerve the audience in the process. There are a few big jolts, but it's the unsettling themes that freak us out.

There has clearly already been quite a lot of trauma in the marriage between Simon and Robyn (Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall), so much so that they've packed up their home in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to start over. As they're settling into their stunning new home in the hills, Simon runs into his old school friend Gordon (Edgerton), who seems to appear out of nowhere, worming his way into their life with a series of thoughtful gifts. But Simon doesn't want to reconnect with Gordon, whom he always thought was a weirdo, which Robyn thinks is rather cruel. She reluctantly agrees with Simon that they break contact with Gordon, due to pressures at work and in their attempts to start a family. But things immediately turn very nasty. And Robyn realises that there's more to Simon and Gordon's past than either is letting on.

With a pungent sense of foreboding, the film is instantly riveting, mainly because it resembles movies like Fatal Attraction. So we brace ourselves for that bunny-boiling moment, and as a writer, director and actor, Edgerton plays with us mercilessly, dropping all kinds of hints and revelations about the reality beneath the surface of these characters. But instead of turning into a crazed, violent thriller, the film instead takes a much more internalised approach, generating suspense from the implications of what is happening. Essentially, it works because it forces us to understand even the darkest motivations of the characters.

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Without a single moment of originality, this found-footage horror movie really deserves to be the last one ever made. Combining elements of Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity with the cliches of 1980s teen slasher movies, the film is technically well-made and at least has a bright young cast. But by adding nothing new to the genre, it's unable to muster up more than one scary moment.

It all takes place in a high school 20 years after Charlie (Jesse Cross) died during a stage production of a creepy play called The Gallows. Now the drama teacher (played by cowriter-director Travis Cluff) has convinced the school board to let him restage the play, and he has cast popular jock Reese (Reese Mishler) in the lead role opposite drama queen Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown). But the nervous Reese secretly has a crush on Pfeifer, and his camera-carrying best pal Ryan (Ryan Shoos) says he needs to sabotage the play so he doesn't embarrass himself on opening night. So Reese, Ryan and Ryan's girlfriend Cass (Cassidy Gifford) sneak into the theatre one night planning to trash the sets. But Pfeifer turns up as well, and suddenly they find themselves locked in, menaced by some sort of unseen force that seems intent on strangling them one by one.

Since the young actors are using their own names, they're essentially playing themselves. And the script offers very little help for them to create properly dramatic characters, never giving even a glimpse beneath the surface. Instead, it's just a case of watching through Ryan's camera as these four intriguing teens run around acting self-involved and clueless, kind of like real teens. As in all of these movies, there is inexplicably no phone signal and the camera magically continues shooting even after the battery should have died. It's also structured as several long, dull sequences in the dark punctuated by moments of inexplicable chaos.

Continue reading: The Gallows Review