Instagram post:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJEscRzt08S/?igsh=MWJuOHNwZm54czdndg==

Every now and then, I like to watch a random horror film, reviews be damned, just to see how it is. Fortunately, the horror genre has a wealth of options for that very thing. I chose this Breck Eisner directed horror film, which is actually a remake of a 1973 horror film of the same name, mainly because of its intriguing premise. I wanted to see how entertaining it could be.

The film had a moderate enough budget, but it honestly felt and looked like a trashy, straight-to-television horror film. It was lit horribly, the camerawork was inconsistent, and, quite frankly, it was just ugly to look at. And then there was everything else going on with it. The pacing was all over the place - the film felt three times longer than it actually was, I wish it had been a good twenty minutes shorter.

There were continuity errors all over the place. There was literally a scene where a guy said "behind you" to warn the protagonist, but the guy literally could not see - I just had to laugh. There were also multiple instances of gunshots coming from one angle, only for the camera to reveal the shooter in a completely different place to where they logically should have been.

I think one of my biggest issues with this film was that everything about it felt so corny. The story was dull, the writing was extremely shoddy, and the execution of just about everything was sloppy. The opening scene was the best one, because it was the only one that actually kept me invested. The mystery, the suspense, and the intrigue died a quick death soon after, leaving only a messy and basic horror film.

The only performances that were remotely worth noting were those of Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. I didn't find either of them particularly good, but they were, however, the least bad. Olyphant actually had some fairly well-actes scenes, intermittently, in any case. Of the mediocre supporting cast, the only two worth mentioning were Joe Anderson and Danielle Panabaker, who didn't exactly inspire me with their acting.

Overall, I found this to be a very poor and very simple horror film. To call it uninspiredband uninteresting would be a little too kind. It was downright unbearable, at points. The only thing that made some scenes watchable was how laughable it was getting. I do feel a little bad for Olyphant, who was clearly trying to rangle something out of nothing, but it really was an impossible and thankless task.