Wan uses cliché like it's back in fashion

Rating: 5/10 (19 April 2011)

The age-old formula sets the tone. A quintessential American family settles into a quintessential American house. Within days the wife, Renai (Rose Byrne) starts hearing strange noises and sees what she's sure are apparitions, but what her husband, Josh (Patrick Wilson) calls her imagination.
It takes the sudden unexplained comatose of one of their sons for Josh to take Renai seriously. Though he remains sceptical, he agrees to change house. All is okay in the new home until the same sorts of things occur: more freakish noises and strange sightings.
Now Renai is hysterical, so Josh enlists a pair of ghost-busters. (It was correct to make them comedic and not take them seriously.) Wan uses cliché like it's back in fashion. I counted at least five: a heater turns on by itself, doors opens by themselves, the clock has a pendulum, mysterious kids run in and out of view and doctors can't diagnose the boy's condition; they've 'never before seen anything like it' (why not find out who has?).
Turns out the boy has been possessed by a particularly nasty demon, which has got to him in a realm called 'The Further' (hell?). To get him back, Josh must ignore his fears and enter this godforsaken place.
There's no build-up. Clichés are like contractions: they come out of nowhere and then disappear, never to return. Why are demons so coy? Wan's demons – get this – 'crave life', but like to toy with their victims before revealing themselves. Jesus!
A horror film isn't scary when you can predict, to the second, when a fright is coming. I have an almost otherworldly talent for this. From someone who is known to still have nightmares over a certain horror film from 1973, this film isn't scary at all.
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