SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

suite92 Jack, Melissa, and Nathan move to a new town and a new house in University housing.At least three of the neighbors knew that Nathan's birthday was coming right up. There's a bad sign if there ever was one! The active hornets' nest was another, especially since the editor keeps cutting to it. The rotten meat in Jack's office desk was a third; the claw marks on the family room wall should probably count as well. The fellow who came by to fix the claw marks takes one look, runs away, gets hit by a car. A door slams shut, followed by windows slamming shut and glass breaking. Good start.Melissa has an unexpected bleeding event which leads her to find out she's pregnant. Her new doctor prescribes complete bed rest coupled with getting a nanny for Nathan and a nurse for Melissa. The neighbor across the street falls, is impaled, and dies. All sorts of clues come from neighbors and Jack's co-workers at the University.The nurse is rather sinister, but the nanny Rhonda seems light and pleasant. Denise beats the living crap out of her, muscles in on the job, including stealing Rhonda's mobile phone. She majors in comparative religions and works part time at a butcher shop. Great stuff.This goes on and on: 'significant event' after significant event, right up to the end. Unfortunately, the film brings none of this significance to fruition.------Scores------One star of five; two black holes for acting and screen writing.Cinematography: 5/10 For daylight portions, the fundamentals were good. The filming during the first ritual sacrifice was hideously bad. The night sequences were spotty.Sound: 7/10 Probably the best part of the film.Acting: 0/10 There were so many bad performances. Hayden Byerly was terrible. Aurelia Scheppers was a disaster. None of the adult actors were worth much either. Jon Briddell, as the clueless father, was the worst of them all.Screenplay: 0/10 Lots of bad execution. Very little of the action makes direct sense. Motivation? Forget that. A handcuffed, willful, incredibly stupid teenager escapes from the inside of a locked police car from the back seat, just second before the car explodes? I don't think so. Jack could have saved his wife by lifting the cord. Jack murdering people to save the son who killed his wife? What goes here? Not logic. The ending did not present resolution or clarification; rather, the ending seemed to deny so much of the rest of the film. The SFX were just sad.

Maria Fahlsing Wow, that was the most pointless movie I've ever seen. The plot is weak, poorly explained, and there are enormous plot holes. The writing is jumpy, which makes the story skip around with little cohesion. For example, when Annie the crazy cat lady next door is asking Nat about her cat, she described it as an orange, then yellow, then orange tabby. Lady, you should know what color your cat is, you batty old dame. It's either seriously bad editing on the script writer's part or deliberate hinting at the woman's insanity.Oh, then we get to the special effects. Whoever mixed the blood did not get the color, consistency, or clotting factor right. It was too red, too staining, not dark enough when dried, and looked like raspberry syrup or diluted ketchup at times. Also, the dead cat under the kid's bed was covered in mealworms, not maggots as it should have been. Mealworms are attracted to rotting plant matter and only eat rotting meat as a last resort. Like, duh! Nice failure to do research, prop artists. If a dead cat was under the kid's bed in the first place, why is it that no one noticed the putrid stench of death? Lastly, at 3 to 4 weeks' gestation, there is no way that the fetus would have a large, recognizable hand to press against its dead mother's womb. The baby is only the size of a poppyseed. Again, do your research, people! Pathetic! Then we get to the acting itself. Seriously, where were these people found? Most of the cast couldn't act their way through a 1st grade play of Little Red Riding Hood to save their lives. The fight choreographer needs to go back to their day job, because the punches thrown and how they "landed" look extremely fake.Lastly, I have major beef with whoever cut this film. Were they asleep at the controls or just not care at all? Did no one review the final cut for mistakes, continuity, or make sure that the film made sense before printing it? A few times, the camera men can be seen in reflections in window panes. The mom blinks three times while lying dead in the bathtub. The cloth with chloroform (I am assuming) over Nat's mouth moves from over his nose to just his mouth and back again a few times during the scene where Annie is trying to kill him.Plot holes, no resolution, no hint as to what really happened at the end, the movie just ends without any of the conflict being resolved or explained, and the last 30 seconds are just strange and unnecessary.Seriously, do not waste your time. This movie will just frustrate you unless you want to pretend to be Joel from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and rip this trash to shreds while you watch with your robot pals.

OHarel4 The very few first minutes were promising enough. From then on - the movie deteriorated: unlikable characters, plot full of holes, irrational decisions of the characters and the ending seems like someone got stuck with the screenplay and decided to wrap it up quickly and go home for dinner (don't get me started on the visual effects, either, which, although not being the main issue here, leave much to be desired). I like endings that makes you think, but in this case, my only thought was "gotta warn others from wasting one hour and a half of their life on this".I guess my main dissatisfaction with this movie is that the storyline did not make much sense, even for the horror genre.so... don't.

Chris Mackey (guestar57) This film is topical, fastly paced and very intense.The director/co-writer was first noticed by Asylum for his acting in '3Musketeers'.Unknown actors usually add to the realism of a film,Yes,It's true here too.There are numbers of creep-out moments that set us up for a fall- ALWAYS look for your cat ,As soon as it comes up missing.Beware of nannies (Aww,Check the news tonite and every night from now on).Birthdays can be a big deal to a whole town.Never,Ever move into a neighborhood,Sight unseen