Just another horror film...

Rating: 5/10 (27 November 2013)

...one of those films that will easily pass an hour and a half if you have got nothing better to do. Do not expect anything great, it is just a fun film that did not annoy me too much. There is two jump scenes, and a few freaky moments, all due to the masks. It looks like the characters were taken straight out of the video game Bioshock put into the costumes of 20 something year old California rich kids, watered down a bit for a bigger audience.
The story is mostly completely predictable, you can get it all from the trailers, a few twists but once the first one comes the rest are obvious. The characters are quite useless, with the exception of Lena Heady and the homeless guy the kid saved (you never find out who he is, which I found quite interesting). Every other character is a cliché, and not too bright either. This is where the spoilers come in (I only give away the middle), so ignore the rest of this paragraph if you do not want to know. After the "Freaks" outside cut the power to the house, threatening them to get the homeless guy back so they can kill him, the family go looking for him. When they find him, he is already quite injured from the "Freaks" before he was saved. To tie him up Lena Heady had to stab his injury with a letter opener. The Daughter character freaks out about this with all the "look at us" stuff that will make you sigh. Ethan Hawke decides to fight instead. He does not want to allow this guy to die, instead he will risk the life of his family and kill half a dozen people instead. It is never explained how they got inside the house, you hear some large pick-ups revving and some chains at the front door, then all the windows are open through the house. This ridiculous plot moment is why I knocked the rating down to 5/10. It would have been 3 or 4 but I liked the twist that comes later.
The acting was not bad, most of them did not have much opportunity for that anyway, it was kept mostly to moody stares and a few scares anyway. Lena Heady is the only one working hard. There is not much in the way of music, sound or special effects. Some of the lighting was a bit weird (the power went off early) there is a few moments in conversation when they just had to shine a torch in each others face, most people would not care for how impractical that would be. It is a fun film in moments, I jumped once (I do not remember the last time that happened) if you are wanting to watch this with some friends that bit will be good fun. Make sure you are good friends anyway, you wont be impressing anyone with this film.