SO MUCH POTENTIAL - UGH!

Rating: 4/10 (23 March 2019)

Such a great idea for a film, such great actors (except one, I'll talk of that later), such great visuals! But holy dang was that an incredibly amateur attempt at a horror movie. I live in Santa Cruz so I was very excited to watch it. But.... sigh.... it just wasn't very scary. Not to mention how ridiculously long certain scenes dragged on. Not sure if it was attempt at a slow-burn style film, but the slow burn was more boring that tense. We get barely any family dialog, so we dont know or care about the dynamic, which makes certain scenes totally un-effective.
As I mentioned I didn't like one actor, but rather one character. One of the "Us" speaks while the rest don't. I understand there is a reason for this (twist ending) but it just really takes you out of it. It would have been much more effective to have them all silent and grunting. They wanted her to talk so she could explain whats going on, when we don't need context. First of all you don't need an explanation to understand the story, so it made me roll my eyes and think "MOVE ON". Many masterpieces of cinema don't explain anything (just look at Kubrick) because a sense of confusion adds to the mystery of the film.
Earthshatteringly disappointing.