Two separate movies jammed together.

Rating: 5/10 (31 August 2018)

The first half of the film is a haunting study in ever-mounting abject grief. It is sparse, yet lyrical. It is a spiral of mystery and pathos. Even the decapitation scene is both deplorably disturbing and artistically beautiful.
Then the film can't decide whether it is a Rosemary's Baby, The Ninth Gate or a Wicker Man ripoff; so it just becomes an overly-muddled mess. Once Toni Collette meets the woman the filmmakers clearly cast because they couldn't get Character Actress Margo Martindale, everything goes by a very laughable book. Literally. Plot points might as well be telegraphed with giant neon arrows. All the subtle ambiguity and mystique from the brilliant first act and a half are laid bare and shoved in our face. Again, literally. The odd grinning man at the wake seemed sinister then. But his reappearance later in the movie (sans his funereal attire) elicits chuckles rather than the shock which was the obvious design for every one of the plot's four or five desperate climaxes. Each one a bit more unintentionally goofier than the previous.
While the overall premise is fantastic, the bizarre shift in tone and misdirected execution of the second half just didn't work as well as, or with, the first 45 minutes. The huge diorama metaphor from early on is forgotten, only to be shoehorned back in at the last second for the final scene - which is more silly than it is disquieting, unnerving or scary.
It was good until it wasn't.