Flawed but fantastic, nicely paced.

Rating: 9/10 (28 August 2000)

A great script with particularly well written characters. Excellent acting, with a special tick for Toni Collette as the confused, frustrated but tenaciously loving mother. There is clever use of psycholological suspense, coupled with some genuinely disturbing images. The story unfolds at an unhurried pace which works well to build the necessary atmosphere for what is about to happen.
The dead enter quickly, catching the audience with a sharp change of pace. Of particular note was the way that the audience is asked to identify with them. We are asked not to turn our heads away in fear but to follow them... a great technique which tends to take us deeper into our own fear! The story may be flawed, the suspension of disbelief stretched, but this is nonetheless a gem in its genre.
Much has been made of the twist, but this remains a bonus not the intrinsic value of the movie.