A well-made and interesting movie

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2002)

This movie is one of the more original movies of 2002. If you like this movie you'll probably like it a lot and if you want a standard horror/blood/slasher movie you'll probably dislike it since it isn't a standard hollywood no-brainer.
I'm not going to bother summarizing since there are plenty of summaries elsewhere.
GOOD THINGS ABOUT THIS MOVIE:
Joaquin Pheonix as the brother, Cherry Jones as Officer Caroline Paski, the child actors, Mel Gibson in one of his better roles, Less-is-more approach, good script that rewards paying attention to details, lots of funny moments, lots of suspenseful moments, lots of subtle nuances, letting your imagination fill in the scary parts, well thought-out script and interconnectedness, the baby monitor, scary noises & good soundtrack, not overwhelmed by special effects.
BAD THINGS ABOUT THIS MOVIE
Rory Culkin had a few bad moments, not everything is explained and you have to figure some things out for yourself (this is good or bad depending on how you look at it), the director making an appearance as Ray Reddy (not too bad, but his acting was not quite as good as some of the other people), a long build-up of suspense that some people may be bored with (I loved it though).