I probably shouldn't have watched this the evening after seeing The Conjuring

Rating: 7/10 (16 September 2017)

I probably shouldn't have watched this the evening after seeing The Conjuring as there are similarities and that film is a much more confident and fundamentally scary movie. I understand Ethan Hawke was not only very keen to play this role but also recommended Juliet Rylance as his wife. I don't think Hawke is really up to this role which is a difficult one as he has to play by himself for much of the time. Neither do I feel there is any rapport between the two. I did like the unusual score, I loved the opening and closing credits (which really are creepy) and felt that the children were effective. Being an old 8mm buff myself, I much enjoyed the playing with these found films and the whole exciting business of editing. I was also most impressed with the 'Skype' sequences when Hawke gets to hear the views of an eccentric university professor. I thought these scenes were amazingly well done and that the film caught fire during these sequences. If only the whole film could have been run at this same tempo and level of weirdness, because it did have the potential to be as scary as The Conjuring.