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alexander k

Warning: MINOR Spoilers AHEAD The good: The music is the best element to this motion pic; the score complements the scenes of scare quite evenly; the second thing is the acting {suprisingly}). Each one of the actors (save for the guy portraying the security guard who was flat and had the worst writing of all the people there) gave their all encapsulating the dread, confusion, and terror in their faces whenever the fright strikes. Also, when it comes down to it, the directing by Craig Rees manages to successfully (not complete all frames) convey uneasiness, wareiness, subliminal euphoria (a little overdone with the blue visions of the stairs tbh), and creepiness... overall, this was creepy. I have to say production design and lighting was standard up until the final moments of the movie, where it started to increasingly better itself. The fine: The writing. Just okay in most spots where it would garnish a scare or jump scare but never does to even character motives and decisions by TWO characters in the movie made me upset and furiated, to when the scares happen it is good to great to kinda thoughtful. The bad: The editing , is the main culprit here; since the beginning of the movie, the numerous inserts of random segways and cutaways to scenes of people just walking around the museum, marked by jump cuts of the music as the abruptly end suddenly to start up again, long stretches of silence and subdued terror made this a problematic notion for me. Furthermore, it was NOT scary. One spot that held my attention was during the scene where it (unfortunately) followed the security guard around THE ENTIRE building }}almost} and he comes across this mannequin of a Spanish soldier. He longingly stares directly into its eyes as the camera cuts back and forth between his reaction to the mannequin' face, all with out sounds or music. This would warrant a proper jump scare that would have made sense and scared me but instead they lazily just have him yell and say 'got ya didnt I?". I got pissed and wanted so bad to turn it off. The film just kept holding attention to things that were oblivious to the story at hand, which made little use of its time as there were several detours in through and all over that kept going nowhere. The constant cuts and\or fades to blacks every couple of minutes made me close to shutting it off.... then the ending happened!.... The one most interesting element or elements of the entire movie is (and I am being 100% honest here, despite my low rating of this film, cause they DID try) the last whole 20 MINUTES of the movie.. it felt like the prouction to the directing of the scenes and actors, to the acting itselves, to the lighting to the suspense and story structure to the mention of the doll' background was horror 101, obviously, but it was invigorating! To the way the main protagonit, David, cowers throughout the hallways hiding and decoding the location of the doll, Annabellum, to the telling of the mythos story of the doll in David's words of the letters ws just immeasurable. His inflection of his voice kept getting weaker and more vulnerable with every foundation of clues he read next. This reminded me closely of Silent Hill and Resident Evil games where characters would find graphs or letters of events long happened that kept the players interest. It certainly did mine. It was kind of inspired. The film ends off with David dying from his possessed receptionist who kills herself, and his niece (corrupted by the doll) goes after the nephew, eventually killing him too. The next morning, detectives take the kid back to her parents and she proceeds to kill them too followed by a shot of her lying ground }presumably living though possible dead} with Annabellum right beside her.. erm, I mean Anna of Bellum :/ ugh. Forhtwhile, all this scene is inter-cut within the end credits to "create a mid-credits tag scene" that just doesn't work that way and should have been implemented into the end of the film as a result _and did I mention it is all done with sepia_toned stills of abandoned town that lead to the parents house that goes on for over a minute long? So weird.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

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Audience Member

Not bad thriller worth the 5 bucks!

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

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Audience Member

An above average doll horror.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/21/23

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Audience Member

Pretty good doll thriller

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

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Audience Member

It was decent enough

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/23/23

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Audience Member

This was quite good.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/19/23

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Craig Rees

Director

Liam Clarke

Detective Mike Crawford

Andrew James Mead

David Whittaker

Chris Millward

Chris Mansell

Monique Todd

Stephanie

Ashleigh McCallion

Beth

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Synopsis

A doll from 1692 Salem brings a curse to a family trapped in an historic English mansion.

Director: Craig Rees
Screenwriter: Carl Rees
Production Co: Tower Bridge Films
Genre: Horror, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 21, 2019
Runtime: 1h 16m

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