This one's likely to be pretty polarizing. I had an absolute blast in the theatre, but people around me hated it, and I can definitely understand why.

It's a recursively plotted haunted-item flick that, like Mike Flanagan's previous effort Absentia, places heavier emphasis on real-world character drama and psychological horror than on ghostly scares. That said, while Absentia's scares were pretty minimal throughout, this one definitely kicks it up a notch in the latter half.

The acting and cinematography are a cut above the average horror offering, even the average theatrical one. This is a $5 million flick, and it looks good -- of course, it also occurs almost entirely in one house. And a big part of why it looks so good is that Flanagan's a great director.

What makes this wonderful is the type of horror. While Absentia drew comparisons to Lovecraft, I would put this one as being a little closer to Poe -- the slow breakdown in objective reality is what's scary, here, and there's a decided fascination with the perverse, too (Poe's kind of perverse, I mean).

To me, this is the best of horror -- a link to real-world fears, the root of adult fears in childhood, the fear of the subjectivity of reality, the fear (as in Absentia) of fundamental unfairness, like real good, deep, Lovecraftian unfairness...and, of course, a good ol' fashioned haunted item with a spooky ghost-story past.

Certainly won't please the Eli Roth crowd and might not even please the James Wan crowd, but I think there's a lot to love here.

The director's previous film is also available on Netflix, for those interested, and is a fantastic super-low-budget work.

I remember Absentia, but its been a while.  I seem to recall that I liked what they were going for -- but I was also left feeling that they missed the mark by a country mile.

Same director, huh?  Too bad that this one might as well be stamped, "Netflix Streaming by Summer".  Hard to justify 20 bucks for a ticket and popcorn.

I do have a mad Karen Gillan crush, though.

Thanks for posting your thoughts on this one, as I have had my eye on it.

Haha yeah I think you are almost certainly correct with "Streaming by Summer." It more than doubled its budget opening weekend, though, and it's quintipled it now, so good news for those hoping for more Flanagan, I would think.

Karen Gillan crush definitely justified. Whatta lady, and a great performance in this film (with props to Flanagan's writing and directing, as the two lead ladies in Absentia were also atypically well-rounded and strong).

Though Katee Sackhoff's the one for me.

This movie seems interesting. When it comes out on VOD, I'll watch it.

It's been getting mostly positive reviews. I look forward to it.

I got around to watching this.

It was good. I liked it. I don't have a lot to say about it. It wasn't great but I wasn't bored. I think the split timelines might have hurt the movie overall as I didn't really like what was happening in the earlier one, when they were kids.

I wouldn't really recommend going out of your way to see this, but if it's on TV, give it a look. It's worth it IMO. It's nice to see a horror movie like this get good reviews.