not the best American horror film in 10 years

Rating: 2/10 (20 October 2016)

their claim in the trailer that this is 'the best American horror film in 10 years' caught my ear. enough so that i looked up '1996 horror films' to see what they were referring to. scream came out that year. not sure they were referring to that
--spoilers--
to me, for a film to be 'scary' i have to care about someone in the story. you're scared for them. you can put yourself in their shoes.
this film immediately gives you 3 people to hate. they break into houses and steal stuff. whatever lame back story we're supposed to ingest is lost in the simple fact that these people are common criminals.
totally cliché' triangle between the scummy leader, the hottish girl who's with the bad boy despite her better judgement, and the 'likable' 3rd guy who thinks she can do better (with him).
they decide to break into his house and rob a blind gulf war veteran... who's daughter was also killed in a car accident. these are the 'victims' we're supposed to empathize with. i wanted to shoot them in the face myself. whatever happens to you breaking into someone's house is on you.
so for a minute i was cheering for the blind guy. expect for the fact they already ruined the 'twist' that he too is bad with the opening scene where he's seen dragging a girl by the hair.
so who are we supposed to root for here? the bad guys or the worse bad guy? i hated all of them and couldn't have cared less what happened to any of them. thus not scary.
jump scares with common items is played. don't try to make us jump with a sudden loud noise. lame
and not to mention, how did a blind buy manage to kidnap his daughter's killer and lock her up in the basement without anyone (like the police) thinking to look there? she killed his daughter and now she's missing. should we look in his basement? nah
this only gets a 2 for production quality. it's well made from lighting, sets, etc. but the story is cockamamie.
how about no?