Wow.

Rating: 8/10 (23 August 1999)

First, I'd like to say that there are spoilers in this review, although I will warn again right before I give them.
This movie scared the crap out of me, which is very unusual. I am usually only creeped out if I watch a movie at home alone in the dark in the middle of the night; in this case, I saw the movie with friends in a crowded theatre and it was still light out when we exited the theatre. Admittedly, I wasn't petrified at first. When we really got scared was when we were walking back to our hotel (as we were visiting a friend of mine) in an area that seemed to have an aversion to street lights. It was very dark and it did not help that we were walking by bushes. We were all totally freaked out and kept looking around behind us. We had the last scene of the movie stuck in our heads, and it stayed there. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I had to leave a light on when I went to sleep. I haven't done that since I was 7 and saw an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, where the almost-final image of a girl hung outside on the door of her home stayed with me for days. Any movie that can have this kind of an effect on me is pretty unusual. Even now, when I'm thinking about the final scene of this movie, I am getting somewhat creeped out. The movie was highly disturbing, simply because it seemed so real and we DON'T actually know what happened. I am also with the group that thinks the acting was good; I think that in many cases they weren't acting. For example [WARNING: spoilers ahead!!!], when that one guy disappeared in the middle of the night, I would not be surprised at all if the other two did not know that was going to happen. Likewise, at the very end of the film, I wouldn't be surprised if the girl didn't know when she'd enter the basement, Mike would be standing in the corner. It really seemed to me like she was having a massive panic attack, at more than one point in the movie.
In any case, I highly recommend this film to anyone that wants to be scared out of their wits.