Are you ready for a dark ride?

Rating: 9/10 (13 May 2011)

This movie is one of the most frightening movies I have ever seen. Before I start my review, let me suggest you to watch this flick in the cinemas or at least with a modern home cinema equipment to be capable to appreciate all the noisy sounds, creepy atmospheres and the brilliant score. I might also warn you. This movie is nothing for people that easily have nightmares. You have to like the feeling of getting scared to watch this movie. I was almost crawling out of the cinema at the end of this dark ride because I had so many moments of scary fears and I my heart pumped like a rattling machine gun but I must admit that I somehow like this feeling and when I got out of the cinema this feeling got away and the film didn't haunt me or kept me from sleeping.
As you might already suppose, this film is not your usual horror slasher or gore movie as it works much more with images and sounds. It's a supernatural movie about demons and ghosts but that won't stop you from getting addicted from the bottom to the top to this intense and dark movie. It starts all very slow just to get more and more profound and scary and to end with a big bang and a little twist.
This is a movie full of ups and downs. The sound rises, the camera moves into a dark room and an actor opens a door or looks somewhere and you expect something scary but nothing happens at all. You get used to it, the music slows down, the actors breathes and feels relieved when suddenly a dark scheme appears and almost freaks him to death in a moment of relative tranquillity. That's what's so strong about this movie. Even if you know what happens and what the strange things mean or look like, you never know when they appear, how they appear and what happens next. This movie plays with wrong expectations, terrible fears and emotions. I have rarely seen anything that was as scary as this.
My only reason to not give the top rating is that the general idea of the movie is nothing new and could have been even more original. But the rest is great from the camera works over the realistic acting to the brilliant score. In times of "Saw 7" or "Scary Movie 4", this flick is a true relief. It helps to vote up the reputation of a genre that has become too commercial, gore and ridiculous in the last few years and should get the status of a future classic. This movie might be the renaissance of a whole genre and is on one level with the scary classics from the seventies and eighties and unites the old and the new generation with its creepy approach. This is the first big cinematic highlight of the year 2011. Don't miss the chance to watch it.
Are you ready for a dark ride?