Almost but not quite...

Rating: 6/10 (11 July 2011)

This is my first review so don't be too harsh. :P When I first saw this film on IMDb and the good reviews of it, I was thinking that this might be pretty damn good flick. And yeah it was enjoyable, but not nearly as good as the first reviews here let you understand. I'm really a great fan of horror not completely relying on cheap scares and blood and gore. Good suspense and real fear is what makes a good horror movie for me. It doesn't need anything else to be good. This film delivers this. Or at least some.
The first part of the film was really good. It was steadily building up the suspense with small things. What really got me here was the jump scares though. I was genuinely freaked out for example when the guy was standing over the baby. The sound effects were also great and they built up the atmosphere and the tension really well. Acting was also very well done in my opinion. Characters were realistic enough to get a sense of their fear and emotions. This far I really thought it would be a great movie, but then something just went wrong.
When these two nerdy guys came in with their fancy equipment I didn't really know what to think. It was some kind of comic relief in a pretty odd place. Actually it wasn't just odd place. I didn't think it fit the movie at all although some lulz were given to them. And then there were was the "summoning" thing, which was okay and interesting to watch even though it really wasn't that scary. But then came the astral traveling to "The Further", and everything just went downhill from there. If I would have seen the movie only from that point onwards I would have given 1 star without a moment of hesitation. The idea behind it was okay, but the implementation was just horrible. It looked like some cheap rip-off from Pan's Labyrinth with some lame wax-doll-ghost-things thrown in it. Not to mention the "demon", which was just some guy with red face paint and sharp nails. Not even remotely scary. Even some extra cheesy CGI would have been better than that. I don't even want to talk about the "escape from the ghosts". The whole thing would have been so much better if it would have been even close to what Pan's Labyrinth "tasks" were. But then again it's probably not fair to compare this movie to that, even though I noticed very conspicuous similarities between the two.
With all that said I want to say that this was not a bad movie at all. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a great way to spend the night with your better half. :) Even though the second half wasn't all that great, I still enjoyed it a lot and it's definitely worth watching and much better than your average horror flick.