Fans Want Something Different, This is It

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2012)

First of all, I don't normally watch horror movies in the theater. I prefer to watch them at home, at night, with the lights off and with as little people around as possible. With this film, it hardly would've mattered. Insidious, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity 1 and 2 are the 5 sole movies that have frightened me as much as this has, so fright fans: put this film in your plans. Daniel Radcliffe is excellent in this film playing a young lawyer near the turn of the 20th century living with his 4 year old son and grieving over the death of his wife during child birth. He is sent to a small village to manage the estate of a recently deceased woman. Obviously there's much more to be seen. The setting and premise of this film is done perfectly. The film has a very dark theme that it wants to get across and it does so superbly, not to mention how well it mixes with it's frightening tone. I've heard many complaints over how films have run out of ideas, but every now and then there's a good one. This is one of them. Yes, there are jump scares, but they're done in a way you haven't seen before. The movie will build up tension for almost 5 minutes until you literally are begging for the scare to come, and then it doesn't, and the music goes away. Now, you think, it'll come right now, it's in the mirror, behind the door, etc. No, the scare doesn't come. It gets you to the point where you actually realize there isn't going to be a scare, and then it finally comes. This film is the first horror movie that I've ever seen that I believe deserved Oscar nominations: costume design, cinematography, and Daniel Radcliffe for best actor. Unfortunately, with today's standards for the Academy Awards, there is almost no way that this type of movie would be nominated for any type of Oscar, though it certainly deserves it.