pretty good if you forget all the hype

Rating: 8/10 (26 April 2010)

First off, I'm the kind of person that doesn't get scared easily. So i had this movie in my laptop, it was just over midnight and the house was empty. Half an hour into it and i started regretting my decision.
Although i was scared witless at the end, but i doubt if it would be half as impressive if it was inside a movie theatre. But the movie is , afterall, well directed. It succeeds in creating an aura of tension and spookiness. Needless to say, this was the whole point of the movie and those who think the movie is not worth watching don't get it. I'd also add that if you watch enough of blunt horror scenes like disembodied heads coming to attack you or whatever, you'd soon get bored of it. Whereas fear of the unknown never fails. This is human nature.
On another point, some scenes are a bit of a disappointment. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna talk about it now...
First - I guess after a couple of nights footage, it was clear that the ghost was entering the room through the door. So, they might as well had closed the door when they slept. Not that it would help, but in the movie it would look nice. A good struggle to distance themselves with the ghost would look better than catching the ghost in action with a camera. Come to think of it, why was the stupid BF filming all this stuff at all? He didn't look like he was gonna use it (he didn't like the idea of a demonologist coming to help).
Second - The psychic comes to call promising to help but chickens out at what, i thought, was to be an interesting twist in the movie. wtf.
Third - The built-up tension in the movie was such that I myself dreaded the moment they went to sleep. So how could "they" sleep so soundly. It was almost odd and nearly ruined my moments of exciting nervousness.
and so on..
Overall, the movie is pretty good. Im at a loss to understand how anyone could possibly think that the acting is bad. I thought the acting is so well that it looked like real life footage to me.
Go ahead, watch it.