WTF did I just watch?

It's like the writer couldn't decide what kind of horror he wanted to make so he just mashed a few together and hoped for the best.

Even my beloved Kelly Reilly couldn't save this piece of shit, she is pretty much the only reason I persisted.

I won't give too much away for anyone that wants to subjext themself to this but there is one of the most cringe worthy lines of dialogue in the last ten minutes, I think that was the most horrifying thing about the film.

Waste of time.

Yeah, have to agree that the execution here was abysmal.

Personally thought it was a great shame, because the ideas behind this were very interesting.

It says a lot about a film can unravel. Good films always harmonise around the idea, with each constituent element, from script, to direction, to location, to set dec, to cinematography, to costume and on existing to serve the story, but to also reinforce theme and ideas that underpin everything.

If we look at someone like Kubrick (probably a bad example because he was just so good), he is the classic auteur, so had control over each element, allowing his vision to be fully realised.

Whereas this film had elements that just didn't mesh, and seemed at times to be at odds with one another. It didn't feel like a team working towards a common goal. Almost as if a bunch of individuals with differing ideas threw their work in the pot, hoping it may come together.

SPOILERS BELOW

This film, however, had all these elements failing to mesh. If you look at the performances, in and of themselves, they were fine, but the central performance of the boy failed to build in enough to suggest he may be the devil incarnate; it was played too straight. If you're going to have a twist ending, you need to build in nuance in the performance that suggested something made be wrong.

The haunted house location didn't work, because if you look at those big spaces everything was filmed in, it failed to build tension and become a character in itself. You needed to feel a sense of claustrophobia, and that's not happening with those big spaces.

The DOP failed to light the film to communicate the ebb and flow of the story, with the whole look being bland.

It's an interesting area to cover for writers, because maybe the script didn't provide the blueprint. Clearly stories need that holistic approach to ensure everything harmonises, and it's a discussion on how a script creates the right foundation for all that follows.