See ya Samara!

Rating: 8/10 (28 October 2002)

What people fail to realize is: there hasn't been a decent scary movie to come out of a major Hollywood studio in years. In all honesty, the last thing I saw that kinda freaked me out recently was the House on Haunted Hill remake and that wasn't all that spooky anyway, save for key scenes. This is cause for celebration! I went to see this not looking for an Oscar contender, I went to get spooked and thats exactly what I got! People pulling their hair waiting for some decent chills, look no further because this movie's got your number. The beginning of the movie literally had me trembling! It's the type of drawn out intro scene that you've seen in movies that you've seen before like Halloween and Scream but it's so well done here that it definitely gets the ball rolling for the upcoming events. I did think the movie was a little uneven at times and it left me with more questions than answers. Some of the acting is a little blah and there were definitely some holes but still, people... I haven't seen a movie that scared me this bad in a while. Naomi Watts gives a good performance and the little girl in this movie did what she had to do. The few special effects present were unobtrusive. The video itself is dang creepy in it's own right. I just like this movie. There's an air of dread hanging over it right from the beginning and any movie that has you feeling uncomfortable for almost two hours gets my vote. In all-time scariness ratings, I wouldn't put it past the Exorcist or even the Exorcist III. I'd put it in my top five though, I am confident in that at least. Now, on to the Japanese original! Rating: **** out of ***** (as far as horror movies go)