Jungian subconscious

Rating: Null/10 (22 July 2011)

The savvy viewer coming into this should know that he will have to struggle with some cheap devices. Overexplaining of the haunting situation with twaddle about the 'further' and astral projection, mumbo jumbo technology that permits us to see the spectra, a bevy of jump scares (some well orchestrated, others not).
But the notions are as good as they always were (as far back as The Innocents), haunted rooms mapping to haunted minds. How inside disturbance manifests around us.
I only wish that a better filmmaker than James Wan would've tackled the project to deliver a more potent vision of a Jungian subconscious. There is a little of The Exorcist (centered around a seance) and a little of Fire Walk with Me inside of this - I would've liked more of the latter.
In other words, when strange figures stand or creep the movie is all that you've heard. When they lunge at us or walk on walls, the effect is diluted.
What we get is good enough though, if we deliberately work to discard the cheapening. Then we're left with a few arresting atmospheres to keep; the house as playground of malevolent presence, an empty ceiling by broad light, the house again reversed by a mirror.