Has its moments, but doesn't really achieve anything

Rating: 7/10 (15 September 2018)

I was unable to finish this movie in one sitting, mostly due to a very slow pace and quite a significant runtime it has. Yet I finished it, and this is what I can sum up:

1. The movie picks up and forgets subplots randomly. For example, this could've been a good psychological drama, but they just abandoned this element of the film by the end.

2. As it builds up it gets very confusing and convoluted, just because a logical human brain cannot process the kind of plot they are going for here. It just doesn't make much sense. A lot of suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy this one. It is quite departed from reality.

3. The ending just made the movie worse. The fact that their initial plot is so hard to swallow made them record a voice over to explain what actually happened. Not good.

4. Casting was good and most of the acting was as well. For some reason it feels like only Gabriel Byrne was somehow underperforming, I guess mostly because of the writing (he didn't have much to do either).

5. Horror elements in this were ups and downs, some of them worked well (like the elements borrowed from classic horrors of the 70's - creepy faces, walking corpses, the use of color in lighting - like Argento did in Suspiria and more). Some of the elements borrowed from modern horrors were misplaced and made it look like a comedy (I actually chuckled once).

Overall, this is a very long and slow mediocre horror with a couple of effective scares and tightly acted psychological drama elements that builds up good tension only to confuse you and kick you in the balls with an unsatisfactory ending. It's up for you to decide whether you want to watch something like this or not.

P.S. Some elements of the production were sloppy, for ex.: if you look closely you can see the strings pulling the pages of the notepad, some of the sound effects were not in sync (like the attic headbanging) and stuff. This kind of stuff is not healthy for the overall atmosphere.