Refreshing Old School Scarefest without need for Gore and CGI

Rating: 8/10 (15 April 2011)

Just seen this at a preview screening in London.
From the makers of Saw, this was surprisingly devoid of any gore and instead what we get is a refreshingly old school scare fest, 80s style. No stupid over-used CGI, just good effective camera work and traditional make up effects (akin to that of Sixth Sense).
But this film was so similar in structure to one of my favourite 80s scary movie that if I mention what that movie is, I feel I would spoil the whole movie for you! I'm pretty much saying this is an act for act total rip off of that movie. I'm surprised they're not even calling it a remake, or a reboot. But I don't mind the extraordinary similarities as this has its own signature and flavour to win over fans of the "original" and definitely will win over those who haven't.
Did I jump out of my skin? At least 20 bloody times. At one time I worried if I was too far away to get back in my body. Granted, they are your traditional BOO moments with the sound cranked up to maximum, you know the type but they are pretty damn effective and done with great timing and excellent editing.
The audience I saw this with clearly loved the scares whilst dreading it at the same time. It's amusing to find people trying to laugh the scares off and I was one of them, its like a defence mechanism. You know you just got tango'd so what do you do? you try laugh it off!
Having said that I think they used that card a bit too many times in the first and second act so it was quite noticeable that later scary moments didn't quite have us jumping out of our seats and in fact some of it fell quite flat.
My other gripe was that the last act did not quite reach the urgency of excitement that the film was clearly building to, some more tightening in the editing was needed here. I might have felt that way because I'm uncontrollably comparing it too much to the "original". I was also hoping for a little more visual imagination in that last act. But I later found out that this movie was made on a minuscule budget of $800,000. Considering this, they did a damn good job of making use of every penny of it. So it was moderately exciting but not as fulfilling as I would have liked.
Even though I think this a clear rip off of an 80s film I love, this delivered exactly what our sadistic inner demons have been crying out for lately, a movie that scares the bejesus out of us.
So this is a great movie to watch on a Friday or Saturday night with your friends and for guys with their dates as I guarantee your arms will be sore as your girlfriends grab you violently several times.