Ernest Scared Stupid was scarier than this

Rating: 4/10 (20 July 2011)

In 2009 there was a huge phenomenon buzz around the film Paranormal Activity, bringing the scare back with simple effects and noises around the house that would make the hair on your arms stand up. I can see why Hollywood would want to capitalize on this since it was so successful, so a bigger budget film was made with the critiques on the poster on how this film is not only scarier than Paranormal Activity, but even scarier than the proclaimed most frightening film of all time The Exorcist. I love how almost every scary movie wants to upstage that title when I would say personally that The Exorcist raised that bar too high for a lot of other films of the genre to reach. My grip when people said that Paranormal Activity wasn't scary because you didn't see anything was that in my opinion, it's what you don't see that is very scary. I think the producers of Insidious took that criticism too far and gave us what started off as a very creepy movie and gave us way too much to be truly frightened.
Renai and Josh Lambert have recently moved into a new house with their three children. One night, as Dalton is playing, he hears noises in the attic and goes to investigate. He steps on an old ladder to turn on the light, when it breaks, causing Dalton to fall. He starts screaming after looking at something in a shadowy corner. Renai and Josh help him. The next day Josh goes to wake Dalton, but he does not move. They rush him to the hospital where the doctors say he is in an unexplained coma. Three months later he is still in a coma and they bring him home to care for him. Over the next few days, disturbing events begin to occur. While Renai plays piano and the baby is sleeping, Renai hears whispering from the baby monitor. Then as she gets closer to the stairs, someone yells "I want him now!" Renai believes the house is haunted. But it turns out that there maybe more to this house than just being haunted.
The beginning was pretty strong, even though we have no real connection to these characters so I don't have much sympathy for them, the film does have some genuine scares. Mainly they rely on the jump scares, but for the most part the ghosts are pretty creepy. However I do have a couple complaints, one being that I think seeing the ghosts killed it for me because if they don't scare you, they look goofy and to me they looked a little goofy and too CGI. The devil is sharpening his knife fingers to a pleasant song which I know is supposed to be creepy but for me killed the moment and I was just laughing like crazy, not only that, but the way he moved was too typical and clichÃ©. Then the ending, that drove me crazy because it seemed like the writers just gave up and went into a M. Night Shamalamadingdong territory where the ending went into a totally whacky land. The whole "being haunted was inherited from my daddy" thing was bogus and such a cop out. I kinda wished they maybe would have made the boy just pure evil, like an Omen thing. Would I recommend this film? I guess this is the Paranormal Activity for the teenagers, now I'm not trying to insult the adults who found this film frightening but honestly after all the films I've seen, this movie is nothing.
4/10