Wimp in "too scared to visit the lavatory" shock.

Rating: Null/10 (30 October 1999)

Like many people have said, the film is just too long: 45 - 60 minutes would've been just fine. Plus, again like many people have said, the sheer amount of hype and comment detracts from the film, preparing you too well for what would otherwise have been a deeply unsettling experience. Nevertheless, it spooked me, and not just for the rest of the night, but into the bright sunny morning that followed. Embarrassing to admit, but I didn't want to leave my room, except when nature was calling too loudly to ignore!
Is it only me that detects the influence of MR James on the story? As with James, we learn of the horrors from 'found' material: in James's stories it's usually diaries, or newspaper reports, or letters, or an overheard conversation, arranged and presented by a disinterested narrator; here, of course, it's the tapes and negatives unearthed long after the fact, the 'narrator' almost invisible except for the opening crawl (and for the fact that someone had to decide how the footage would be presented). I'm not sure why this technique is so effective, unless it is simply the veneer of presenting facts, rather than creating a story. The more obvious Jamesian influence is in leaving the precise nature of the horrors unexplained, but giving just enough information to leave you in no doubt that whatever is behind the phenomena is very nasty indeed. Check out any James collection to see what I mean; 'A School Story', 'Count Magnus' and 'The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral' are perhaps the most typical examples.
But do you want scary? I mean REALLY scary? Oh, I can give you scary.
A couple of days after seeing the film, a friend of mine was talking to colleagues about it. A lady in her twenties had also been to see it, with a group of friends.
"Did you think it was scary?" asked my friend.
"Oh yes," she replied, "it was terrifying. I don't know how they got away with it."
"Got away with what?"
"Showing those poor people dying like that"
"You're joking."
"And the dead children, too. They shouldn't have had the dead children on there. I don't like that."
"Tell me you're joking."
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't really think it was real, do you?"
"Oh, it was."
"It was not!"
"Yes it was. My boyfriend was reading about it in the paper and they said it was real."
Actually, that's more depressing than frightening.