⭐️⭐️1/2
Having a hard time in the wake of his wife’s death, youthful-lookin’ David Prescott and his teenage daughter Katherine move into a secluded countryside farmhouse. The tenuous relationship between father and daughter is further agitated by a spike in paranormal shenanigans plaguing the house. A strange neighbor is laughed off as just being an old coot when she advises that she’ll pray for them upon their arrival. A creepy porcelain clown doll is found discarded under the daughter’s bed and she catches a disturbing apparition in a photograph she takes of their new home. She also finds photos of herself sleeping on her camera, which is never good, even if it ain’t a ghost snapping some shots. She asks her dad if he took the candid shots but he denies it and Katherine warns that something strange is going on but dad doesn’t want to wrap his head around the idea of displaced spirits roaming their new home. It’s a whole lot easier to blame pipes for phantom footsteps than the unquiet dead. The creepy clown doll keeps popping up to freak out Katherine and the two grow more agitated with their situation and with each other. A hooded and masked (a porcelain baby mask for some reason) specter is seen but dad assumes his daughter is smoking weed and winding him up. He’s super wrong and super in denial. The kind of denial that makes him an obnoxious asshole. Dad comes around after getting attacked by that clown doll in a wonderfully unconvincing bit and Katherine is paranormally raped in a scene that thankfully doesn’t go on too long and happens in between the doll attack. The elderly neighbor gives them the exposition needed as to why the house is haunted and the evil that’s stained the rooms like a trout hidden in drywall. Slaves, slaughter and voodoo will do that to a home. Especially if your original homeowner went by the name Necrosse. Luckily, a somewhat respected paranormal investigator considering retirement from the public eye is in the area and is willing to help out to prove his wild theories involving negative realities. A séance leads to violence and the budget-strained spookiness finally comes to a close in a less than satisfactory manner. The melodrama may be shaky but solid performances from our leads help navigate the standard haunting hoopla. It’s no meager accomplishment to have me sympathizing with a moody teenager but Natalie Martins brings it to the role and makes for a likable protagonist. Lee Bane may not look the part but even his prickish demeanor at the slowly unraveling unknown in his home is believable. Stealing it, though, is Jared Morgan as the paranormal investigator Hans Voltz who has me wishing there were further adventures of his to watch. Also loved the end credits, just name listings and black and white photographs of the whole fucking movie set to some creepy music… really should have opened with that even if it would have given a bunch away. Reminded me a bit of The House of Seven Corpses and I always like being reminded of that.
Having a hard time in the wake of his wife’s death, youthful-lookin’ David Prescott and his teenage daughter Katherine move into a secluded countryside farmhouse. The tenuous relationship between father and daughter is further agitated by a spike in paranormal shenanigans plaguing the house. A strange neighbor is laughed off as just being an old coot when she advises that she’ll pray for them upon their arrival. A creepy porcelain clown doll is found discarded under the daughter’s bed and she catches a disturbing apparition in a photograph she takes of their new home. She also finds photos of herself sleeping on her camera, which is never good, even if it ain’t a ghost snapping some shots. She asks her dad if he took the candid shots but he denies it and Katherine warns that something strange is going on but dad doesn’t want to wrap his head around the idea of displaced spirits roaming their new home. It’s a whole lot easier to blame pipes for phantom footsteps than the unquiet dead. The creepy clown doll keeps popping up to freak out Katherine and the two grow more agitated with their situation and with each other. A hooded and masked (a porcelain baby mask for some reason) specter is seen but dad assumes his daughter is smoking weed and winding him up. He’s super wrong and super in denial. The kind of denial that makes him an obnoxious asshole. Dad comes around after getting attacked by that clown doll in a wonderfully unconvincing bit and Katherine is paranormally raped in a scene that thankfully doesn’t go on too long and happens in between the doll attack. The elderly neighbor gives them the exposition needed as to why the house is haunted and the evil that’s stained the rooms like a trout hidden in drywall. Slaves, slaughter and voodoo will do that to a home. Especially if your original homeowner went by the name Necrosse. Luckily, a somewhat respected paranormal investigator considering retirement from the public eye is in the area and is willing to help out to prove his wild theories involving negative realities. A séance leads to violence and the budget-strained spookiness finally comes to a close in a less than satisfactory manner. The melodrama may be shaky but solid performances from our leads help navigate the standard haunting hoopla. It’s no meager accomplishment to have me sympathizing with a moody teenager but Natalie Martins brings it to the role and makes for a likable protagonist. Lee Bane may not look the part but even his prickish demeanor at the slowly unraveling unknown in his home is believable. Stealing it, though, is Jared Morgan as the paranormal investigator Hans Voltz who has me wishing there were further adventures of his to watch. Also loved the end credits, just name listings and black and white photographs of the whole fucking movie set to some creepy music… really should have opened with that even if it would have given a bunch away. Reminded me a bit of The House of Seven Corpses and I always like being reminded of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment