Creepy but dull

Rating: 3/10 (10 June 2018)

On the positive side: creepy atmosphere via exceptional cinematography. Nice direction. Decent performances. But the story....
All over the place. Rambles along with some creepy moments. But then...the sister gets her head chopped off along with the plausibility of the characters and the story arc. What is the point of this film? We are presented with a series of MISERABLE characters...who go through MISERABLE experiences...and some act like they're zombies (the son Peter). And the rest are either in some sort of odd trance (the weird daughter) or hysterical (the mother) or emotionally removed (the father). One serious problem is that they are ALL UNLIKEABLE. Period. From the beginning - when the lead mom (played by Toni Collette) spews venomous comments about her mother AT HER MOTHER'S FUNERAL...We are supposed to get behind her journey? And as the film progresses...we get a plethora of cliches: (1) the seance - by the way makes no sense in terms of the story structure and feels totally contrived (2) the ghostly apparitions pop in and out - also makes NO SENSE (3) the naked old people ghosts at the end - that takes the story into a final implausible area. The screenplay is a total joke. All over the place in terms of structure and focus. A buddy of mine (quoted here so I don't take credit) called in "misery porn dressed up like a horror film". And the audience certainly gets the misery part oh so well.