A 1980's throwback without too many of the drawbacks

Rating: 8/10 (12 March 2015)

(72%) After last year's brilliant 1980's throwback Cold in July, plus the decent, yet oddly and annoyingly overrated The guest, comes this which fits somewhere in between the two of them. Although it must be said this is the best new horror I've seen since the great Babadook. First of all, and from the very start, this is an almost faultlessly well made production crafted by the young David Robert Mitchell who puts considerably more experienced film makers to shame (Wes Craven I'm looking at you). The perfectly cast Maika Monroe shines twice as much here as she did in The guest simply because this is twice as well written, while her support is given enough weight for me to be invested in the unfolding events proving that making all or most of the cast into jackasses isn't the only way to make a teen based horror (Eli Roth, take notes). On the downside, and with all that's said and done, the plot isn't anything particularly groundbreaking. But I liked how the curse itself is left largely to the audience to figure out how exactly it operates with the somewhat flawed diagnosis of certain characters only going some of the way to explain what this thing actually is, which I thought really works among these young adults with their limited assumptions and rumour based understanding of it all. If you have any fondness for 80's flavoured, John Carpenter inspired horror, or just a good horror flick that are increasingly becoming rare these days, then this is more than good enough for a look.