Visions opens up with a lethal car accident and then a rather unique set of a vineyard. There's expectation on fresh rendition of haunting here, but unfortunately it succumbs to inconsistent acting and excessive jump scares. While it does try to produce a shocking twist, the foray there is tedious and with Eva Longoria presents, it feels like Desperate Housewives with jump scares.
Isla Fisher appears to be cast simply by looking like a potential soccer mom. The first thing audience would notice is she flinches, a lot. From the phone vibration or wall banging, she would flinch as though she's in a constant startled state. This is made worse by the occasional gap in editing to the actual fright, so she just looks entirely awkward most of the time.
Her role is supposed to be a frightened mother who audience could relate to, but seeing that her expressions tend to be unnatural, it's hard to take the premise seriously. Gillian Jacobs, on the other hand, really performs. She's probably the most comfortable one here, giving nice effort to much broader range than her usual comedic role from Community series.
The movie also doesn't go far in term of horror. Almost every buildup is predictable and it all comes down to "I'm not crazy!" cliché. The female lead Evey suffers from traumatic experience and is now pregnant, a double dose for incessant shouting to defend her sanity. The other characters are mainly there to look in disbelief and concern.
Jump scares are abundant here, so prepare for more than one hour of noises equivalent to sudden chalk screeching on the board. Along with Evey's jumping reflex, it tries too hard to give produce the illusion of horror. The later twist is pretty good, yet it doesn't exemplify the cheap scare one must endure for almost the entirety of the movie.
While the end twist is decent, there's not enough refined acting to instill sympathy for the soon-to-be mother. In the end Visions' short runtime is mostly wasted on timid attempt on horror.
Isla Fisher appears to be cast simply by looking like a potential soccer mom. The first thing audience would notice is she flinches, a lot. From the phone vibration or wall banging, she would flinch as though she's in a constant startled state. This is made worse by the occasional gap in editing to the actual fright, so she just looks entirely awkward most of the time.
Her role is supposed to be a frightened mother who audience could relate to, but seeing that her expressions tend to be unnatural, it's hard to take the premise seriously. Gillian Jacobs, on the other hand, really performs. She's probably the most comfortable one here, giving nice effort to much broader range than her usual comedic role from Community series.
The movie also doesn't go far in term of horror. Almost every buildup is predictable and it all comes down to "I'm not crazy!" cliché. The female lead Evey suffers from traumatic experience and is now pregnant, a double dose for incessant shouting to defend her sanity. The other characters are mainly there to look in disbelief and concern.
Jump scares are abundant here, so prepare for more than one hour of noises equivalent to sudden chalk screeching on the board. Along with Evey's jumping reflex, it tries too hard to give produce the illusion of horror. The later twist is pretty good, yet it doesn't exemplify the cheap scare one must endure for almost the entirety of the movie.
While the end twist is decent, there's not enough refined acting to instill sympathy for the soon-to-be mother. In the end Visions' short runtime is mostly wasted on timid attempt on horror.