A Fairly Good Buildup Descends Into Halloween Fun House

Rating: 4/10 (5 November 2012)

This story about whether a child or a house is possessed or haunted began with some believable acting and some genuinely scary happenings in the first 20 or 30 minutes, and I believed it was really going to be a terrific film like David Cronenberg's "The Brood", or "Frailty". But when the central idea was revealed before the midpoint, it became a silly exercise in quick glances of demons and ghostly looking people that reminded me of Halloween Scare Houses, or Carnival Dark House Rides, and by the end, I was bored and reduced to occasional chuckles and whispered jokes to my friend watching with me.
For anyone to suggest this is one of the scariest films ever, they either haven't seen many, or they scare awfully easily. To be genuinely scary, a movie must make the viewer buy into the happenings, not just see a lot of scary faces with loud noises. The idea itself should have suspense and dread. This film also had the cliché of an older lady, probably a medium, explain all the hokey happenings as though this were a well known phenomenon. I could list at least 20 scarier movies going back to the 50's and 60's than this disappointingly dumb film. I gave it a 4 because of the first 30 minutes, which were a 7, but the last hour and ten minutes, a 1.