Slooooooooooooow

Rating: 6/10 (12 January 2005)

But not bad all in all. The story of an Amish style society, told with the directors usual assortment of sight frights and skin crawlers. These mostly concern the creatures that terrorize the village by night. They are definitely scary, modeled almost exactly like the devil's henchmen in Time Bandits, those tall cloaked creatures with the cows skull heads and hook hands if you have any idea at all what I'm talking about. Gilliam was definitely onto something, because as goofy as they sound, for some reason they scare the crap out of you. Shamalyan has a gift for getting the absolute scary most in a situation, and in this film he exercises the talent generously. Here's the trouble, if you find the fright ineffective, I can almost guarantee you will hate this film, because not a whole lot else happens in it. There isn't a plot as such, its more of an examination on the way of life and the attendant troubles of a closed off society. The trouble of the creatures becomes the overriding drama, and the Twilight Zone style resolution isn't bad. Its not great however, and there's unquestionably too much ineffective dead time. Fans of this director will no doubt overlook the shortcomings and repeated themes, and enjoy one of his scarier efforts. For the average guy on the street, it might not satisfy.