Good story, average film-making, bad actors

Rating: 6/10 (12 June 2008)

Well, I really like Mr. Night Shyamala.. Shamyla... errr, his movies so far. I liked The Village despite its obvious plot flaws and I liked Lady in the Water as well, but this time..
It is safe to say that the story itself has some potential. It could have been a really scary, entertaining, creepy movie - and it was at least sometimes, the opening sequences were actually really frightening, and Mrs. Jones really made my flesh creep.. But then, bad acting, especially Deschannel, really turned me off. She looked like a small child with wide eyes ALL the time. I felt that her acting resembled that of C-class TV-series actors.
Anyway, the camera did a good job, but the editing sometimes appeared to be quite disrupting and jumped from scene to scene seemingly unmotivated, leaving me behind feeling like only taking glimpses at the story and what happened.
And then there are the countless implausibilities and very "unlikely" events - and I'm not speaking of the story itself which was as I said not bad, better to say, promising.. No, the events as presented in the movie more than once let me think "yeah, right..."
Overall it was, despite the flaws in and the criticism on the movie-making handicraft and acting, an interesting movie, unconventionally and sometimes quite surrealistically filmed (as always with Mr. Night S. - I guess this times the unconventional and unsteady editing contributed to that feeling) and some good ideas and really good and scary scenes, but it seemed to be done in a rush, not very caring, not really a work of heart but a remittance work.
BUT: I can't help but somehow I can't stop thinking about the movie.. It still works in my brain, and not in a bad way. Hmmmm.....