Speechless.

Rating: 1/10 (1 September 2013)

***SPOILERS***
I'm mortified that this movie has the overall rating it does. I'll try to keep it clean and simple:
Blair Witch effect: the majority of this movie is in darkness or dimly lit rooms, to the point where it surpasses suspense and atmosphere and simply leaves you watching what is essentially a black screen for the entire duration.
Accents: The mother, Tracey, plays the token, somewhat well-spoken London accent character and in real life this is actually the case however for some bizarre reason her accent in this movie comes across as though it's been tainted with American. The result is oddly pronounced English that you can't get comfortable with. Ultimately it's difficult to take any line she gives without simply focusing on figuring out her accent and over- pronunciation of words as commonly seen in American movies where a British character is used. Very distracting and awkward.
Noises: numerous scenes in the movie contain a strange clicking sound supposedly made by the same equipment being used for showing the home movies in the film. This noise bears no relevance to the scenes and doesn't at all fit with the atmosphere of it and so is annoying to listen to, why on earth was it used?
Repetition: the core hanging scene shown in the film is showed quite literally again and again and again throughout the movie with no real reason for doing so. Not necessary, and quite frankly appeared to be a way to waste more film time.
Cheap tactics: because the film itself lacked anything to actually be scared of, it relied heavily on cheap scare tactics (think as basic as you like, faces jumping out at the screen, falling silent before a big shock) to actually be called a "horror". The ending- extremely predictable. This film reminds me of a ghost ride at a funfair.
Repetition: as well as the continuous darkness throughout the film, I'd say a good 90% of it (no exaggeration, you have my word) is Ethan Hawke walking around the house with a torch, pulling the same face. There is no content and interesting devices to move the story along.
The ghost children: it looked like kids do when they're in a school play and have faint paint on and white sheets. Pulling the dull emotionless face that filmmakers seem to think is scary the entire time.
Rating: 1 star. The one star comes from the filmmakers successfully managing to leave out one of the ghost children saying "wanna play?". For this I applaud them. One thing this film did right. A genuinely awful, awful film and one I do not for one second recommend to anyone. Spend your time more wisely, there are better-made films out there that you could be giving your time and effort to.