It's the movies that go down the middle that can be the hardest to talk about. When a movie is awesome or just terrible, a lot of stuff springs to mind really quickly. When a movie is kinda mediocre, you struggle to separate the positives from the negatives and it all kinda blends together in a pile. Luckily, even though I gave this movie a 6, there is stuff to talk about and even though this movie didn't completely work for me, it's still a step up for M. Night. But considering his recent output, take that with a grain of salt.
*Minor Spoilers Ahead* Paula (Kathryn Hahn) is a single mom who has 2 kids, Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould). Rebecca is a teenage aspiring filmmaker and Tyler is a wannabe rapper who Rebecca describes as "ethnically confused." Paula works hard and gets very little for herself so the kids want her to spend some time with her new boyfriend Miguel. So she goes on a cruise with Miguel, while her estranged parents John (Peter McRobbie) and Doris (Deanna Dunagan) are going to look after the Rebecca and Tyler for the week. There is some tension with this decision as Paula has had little to no contact with her parents since her teenage years after she moved out with her boyfriend when she was pregnant. But the kids genuinely want their mom to have some time for herself so they board a train and head off to their grandparents.
I don't want to go into the plot more to avoid spoiling things, so I think the strength of this movie is that the story/concept is interesting. When you're a kid, being handed over to strangers for an extended period of time is pretty scary, you ease into it of course but initially it can be pretty frightening. This movie plays into those fears well, I can tell you if I had been left with these people, I would not have been so calm and willing to roll with the punches as these kids were. I found it to be intriguing that they found a fairly unique way to tap into a natural fear instead of manufacturing a ghost or a demon from another realm.
Another positive is that the acting is largely good. Peter and Deanna are pretty creepy respectively, they really put a lot into their performances, they display some physicality even. Now Olivia and Ed are also solid, their characters themselves are annoying, Ed's rapping is pretty bad and Rebecca doesn't talk like a teenager (her dialogue is obviously written by someone who's older and didn't know how to bring it down to a teenage level) but their performances are good. Kathryn Hahn is also sound in the small amount of screen time she gets. She's an underrated actress and she continues to deliver in the small parts she gets.
I'll get into the stuff that didn't work for me. The found footage movie has been done many times over and while I didn't find this one to be especially bad, it certainly didn't add anything new. It didn't have to be found footage and while it being that way was part of the plot, it just felt like a way to keep the movie's budget down as opposed to being an important stylistic choice.
As much as I thought the central premise was cool, a lot of the plot relies on coincidence and contrivance. Somehow whenever someone comes to the house, the grandparents are never there. Whenever the grandparents do something crazy, the excuse is they're old (rarely is there a further explanation and when there is, its dropped and barely addressed at all later). Their mom can't see them during their Skype conversations because there's batter on the camera. Paula gives the kids so few details about their grandparents' temperament or their appearance. I understand every movie has that to some degree but it stood out to me here.
The film itself wasn't very scary but I did get some laughs (intentional laughs) and toward the end the tension did ramp up. This is another divisive movie, looking at other reviews you either really enjoy it or you hate it with a passion. It's closer to a 6.5/10 for me but since it is technically a horror movie and I wasn't very scared I'll go with a 6/10.
*Minor Spoilers Ahead* Paula (Kathryn Hahn) is a single mom who has 2 kids, Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould). Rebecca is a teenage aspiring filmmaker and Tyler is a wannabe rapper who Rebecca describes as "ethnically confused." Paula works hard and gets very little for herself so the kids want her to spend some time with her new boyfriend Miguel. So she goes on a cruise with Miguel, while her estranged parents John (Peter McRobbie) and Doris (Deanna Dunagan) are going to look after the Rebecca and Tyler for the week. There is some tension with this decision as Paula has had little to no contact with her parents since her teenage years after she moved out with her boyfriend when she was pregnant. But the kids genuinely want their mom to have some time for herself so they board a train and head off to their grandparents.
I don't want to go into the plot more to avoid spoiling things, so I think the strength of this movie is that the story/concept is interesting. When you're a kid, being handed over to strangers for an extended period of time is pretty scary, you ease into it of course but initially it can be pretty frightening. This movie plays into those fears well, I can tell you if I had been left with these people, I would not have been so calm and willing to roll with the punches as these kids were. I found it to be intriguing that they found a fairly unique way to tap into a natural fear instead of manufacturing a ghost or a demon from another realm.
Another positive is that the acting is largely good. Peter and Deanna are pretty creepy respectively, they really put a lot into their performances, they display some physicality even. Now Olivia and Ed are also solid, their characters themselves are annoying, Ed's rapping is pretty bad and Rebecca doesn't talk like a teenager (her dialogue is obviously written by someone who's older and didn't know how to bring it down to a teenage level) but their performances are good. Kathryn Hahn is also sound in the small amount of screen time she gets. She's an underrated actress and she continues to deliver in the small parts she gets.
I'll get into the stuff that didn't work for me. The found footage movie has been done many times over and while I didn't find this one to be especially bad, it certainly didn't add anything new. It didn't have to be found footage and while it being that way was part of the plot, it just felt like a way to keep the movie's budget down as opposed to being an important stylistic choice.
As much as I thought the central premise was cool, a lot of the plot relies on coincidence and contrivance. Somehow whenever someone comes to the house, the grandparents are never there. Whenever the grandparents do something crazy, the excuse is they're old (rarely is there a further explanation and when there is, its dropped and barely addressed at all later). Their mom can't see them during their Skype conversations because there's batter on the camera. Paula gives the kids so few details about their grandparents' temperament or their appearance. I understand every movie has that to some degree but it stood out to me here.
The film itself wasn't very scary but I did get some laughs (intentional laughs) and toward the end the tension did ramp up. This is another divisive movie, looking at other reviews you either really enjoy it or you hate it with a passion. It's closer to a 6.5/10 for me but since it is technically a horror movie and I wasn't very scared I'll go with a 6/10.