Not bad, but worth watching for Esther alone.

Rating: 6/10 (27 May 2010)

*SPOILERS!* my whole review contains spoilers so don't read if you haven't seen it yet.
The movie starts out like your typical dark psychological thriller, including the painfully cheap scare tactics of a squeaky medicine cabinet that isn't scary. I just hate when directors think it's a good idea to do that, because it's such a cop-out cliché from real fear.
The bird kill was actually extremely well done. I went step-by-step on the DVD and it just looks so real. Bravo.
The biggest fault for me is the unbelievability. Scene after scene of evil little girl actions and everyone is just sooo oblivious it gets very frustrating- Especially the dad, get a clue! Whom, also, is obviously gay. I read up on it and it seems he's married to Maggie Gyllenhaal with a child but still, that doesn't mean he's hetero and his speech and movement are real giveaways. I am certainly not saying that there is a problem with being gay, but the character calls for a straight family man and so in that way I felt it was distracting since most of time his homosexuality just seems so incredibly obvious. Anyway, after the nun from the orphanage is killed, that should have been a dead giveaway that OK, something is NOT RIGHT. but still the evil continues and obliviousness ensues. As for her death, the CG blood was a little distracting and there could have been more fury, so overall not too exciting. The grandma, a bitchy woman who only appears in a couple scenes, also really could have benefited from a creative death scene.
When the mom finds dad in a puddle of his own blood, (nice stabbing death) she seems very underwhelmed. Your loving husband has just been murdered and you only sit by his side for a moment to grieve and then take off never to return. That's just unnatural. She showed more emotion in all of her other dramatic scenes and this was the most dramatic of all! The real saving grace in this movie is Isabelle Fuhrman who plays Esther. I don't think they could have gotten anyone better. Perfect casting. She is so manipulative and believably evil. The twist at the end is original and very clever and it WORKS! After seeing her brush off her make-up and change her clothes, you really believe she is a 33-year old psycho dwarf! She really makes the movie worth watching.
The ending was a disappointment. Mom delivers that cliché one-liner, which actually may have worked if it wasn't pronounced as loudly and with such dramatic pause. That just made it so cheesy. And this is followed by a CG neck break which just makes me groan in disappointment. Why is that even needed? It would have been much better to have the mom kick her real hard in the face and have her neck slam backwards and watch her bloody face slowly submerge into the water below.
The movie isn't bad, but it really could have benefited from a trim of 30 minutes and a few re-writes. 2 hours isn't needed, an hour and a half would have sufficed just fine.