Obnoxious and cliche

Rating: 7/10 (23 October 2002)

Contains Spoiler Yeah, so it was startling at a couple parts, and the director knows how to make you jump by cutting quickly to a LOUD SOUND. Real gift you got there, Gore. However, the main characters are SO selfish and obnoxious, and the supporting cast SO clearly cardboard copies of 1,000 better characters in scarier films, that this film ultimately is just frustrating and kind of lame. At best it's a decent mystery, but c'mon, is this REALLY as scary as people are saying, or did the quick cutting just make you jump a bunch? After all, STARTLING is not SCARY (though just about all of the horror directors out there seem to have a really hard time understanding this). My main beefs with this silly movie were 1) Why, if this broad cares so much about her little Haley Joel does she ignore him the entire flick, and leave him at home with the babysitter for 90% of the film? The writer thinks so low of the audience that this chick can treat her child like crap the whole time, but if she keeps saying "I'm doing this for Haley Joel #2" then we're all supposed to go "Holy crap! Guess she does love that little brat." I had a lot more points to make, but I'm only writing this to keep from an essay I've been putting off, so I'm just going to make one more point - Who the hell kills themselves by gathering all the appliances in the house, creating some weird crown out of hot dog tongs, then hoping in a half filled tub and switching the surge protector around your neck to "on." Naomi Watts shoulda yelled "Uh...hey Mr. Old Man...you can do the trick with just a toaster in the bathtub." But I guess that wouldn't be so CHILLING and DISTURBING. Ohhhhhhhhhhh. I'm shuddering just thinking about her looking through old newspaper articles and saying "What did you do to yourself, Ruth?" just like EVERY character in these hackneyed plots has to say when their in the basement looking though old newspaper articles. This had such potential, and is just kinda gay at best. Try a little harder! C'mon, it's not THAT hard to be scary. Although, I beleive I'm in the minority, since everyone's running around saying this gave them nightmares. I'm jealous. I wish I was scared this easily. I'd go to thrillers a lot more often. Oh well, back to writing my freakin essay. Grrrrrrrrrrr.