blessedmakerCurator
Overall7Fear4Atmos.8Gore7
Flawed but very entertaining film. The good: practical effects/make up and ghost/creature/monster design is absolutely top tier. The ghosts are distinctive and are creepy and twisted in their own right which immerses you. The architecture of the "building" the story takes place in is creative and sets are intricate and also help with the immersion building of the story. Tony Shalhoub and Matthew Lillard are standouts in their role, Shalhoub convinces as the protective but broken father (I mean he does the best he can with the writing), and Lillard plays his role as a depraved clairvoyant to maximum effect. Soundtrack is quite good too - good balance of epic/mysterious/foreboding when it was needed.
The bad: Family dynamics lacked authenticity (aside from Shalhoub), Shannon Elizabeth (quick, which movie do you think of when you see her, thats probably why they casted her) feels miscast as his daughter and it's glaringly obvious. Plot is pretty wild and definitely has moments where it piqued my curiosity but in my opinion it didn't quite stick the landing and the motivations of characters sounded too implausible. I wouldn't say the story is bad though, just not quite enough there at the end.
TLDR; entertaining horror movie, monsters extremely well crafted, great set pieces, and Lillard is charismatic and brings juice to his character. Worth a watch.
