Over-hyped but not worthless

Rating: 5/10 (31 December 2009)

A group of my friends went to see this movie when it was released in theaters, they all came out of it glorifying the movie. Don't by into the hype.
I waited for the DVD, mainly because I can't stand seeing horror films in theaters, reason being I can't stand the obnoxious people who crack jokes and laugh at the scary parts so they don't pee their pants. I'm glad I waited for the DVD, because I would have been disappointed had I of seen it at the cinema.
There is enough praise out there for this movie already, so if that's what you are looking for you'll not get it from me.
So lets begin. The acting wasn't terrible, but the characters themselves were unbelievably fake. The actors do a decent job, but what they had to work with wasn't decent at all. I felt the characters were very dumb. On multiple occasions the characters are walking through their house at night looking for whatever made the bump sound. They appear freaked out, and yet, they never bother to turn on a light, instead they search aimlessly in the dark. Now why am I complaining about such a little thing? Because no one in their right mind would go walking around their house at night thinking something scary was in there without ever turning on a light. Also, they sleep with the bedroom door wide open. I know closing it wouldn't really stop anything from opening it, but at least it would give you a little extra sense of security. I'm just saying, in real life, if this were happening to you, wouldn't you close the bedroom door? Or turn on the lights if you thought something was in the house? The characters are just not believable. Next and last complaint. The movie is extremely repetitive and very predictable. Basically, the movie goes like this, it's day time, characters are talking about the same thing they always talk about and are getting less and less sleep but it's not really affecting their lives, now it's night time, they are sleeping, the camera fast forwards to somewhere around 2-4 pm time-frame, something spooky happens, the characters go looking for the cause, find nothing, go back to bed, it's day time again, and repeat. You know when the scary parts are going to happen, it's never a surprise when it does happens. The scary parts hardly even come off as scary, because they are situations that would only be spooky if it were actually happening to you.
So, with that, if you like scary movies, you might like this, it's not a completely worthless movie, but it's really not that good of a movie. 5 out of 10 is fair I'd say.