A Bit Annoying

Rating: Null/10 (17 October 2011)

Overall I think that people have been too positive with the reception of this film. There are some very strong aspects to it: Above all else in the extremely convincing performance from Isabelle Fuhrman. It was a truly superb performance and her role was also helped by her initial character development. In the first half an hour of the film there are elements of sympathy that the viewer has for her and for a moment I was considering the possibility (and hoping) that she was going to be perhaps more of a Carrie than a Damien Omen horror figure. However it was perhaps a little bit disappointing how abruptly they made it clear that she was purely evil and did not make her a more multi-faceted killer. For instance I would have preferred if it was a little more unclear throughout the whole movie whether or not she did want to kill every member of the entire family but it was already apparent that she did about a third of the way into the film.
But my biggest problem with the film is actually in the character (and performance by Peter Sarsgaard) of John. It got extremely unrealistic how he doubted the convictions of Kate to such a degree given the overwhelming evidence that this girl was behind all the extremely odd things going on. While it was kind of refreshing to see a pathetic male instead of female in the film, this really got blown out of proportion. On top of everything else, when he finds Esther's pictures of everyone in their family being painted as if they were dead his reaction is to spend about 5 minutes looking through all of them and subsequently trying to fix the fuse box before even going to get his daughter out of the house. I understand this is a classic horror tactic but I think it was executed very badly in this film especially when we are led to believe the couple is intelligent - she lectured at Yale, and he is an architect. An honourable mention should also go to his decision to drink a bottle of wine (which somehow makes him so drunk that he hallucinates) on the same night where Esther has been implicated in the burning down of his son's tree house, his son going to hospital and then mysteriously going into cardiac arrest at the exact same time Esther leaves the waiting room in the hospital.
If you are going to do the whole unrealistic horror thing, then do it well and make it clear that you intend on doing it not that it is just some kind of flaw in the storyline. Nevertheless despite my misgivings, I would still recommend this film purely on the basis of the character of Esther and 'her secret' which was quite an interesting one. Just be prepared when you watch it to see the most pathetic male character in a horror movie you have ever seen. Feminists Galore!