Critical Views - watching something

Another [cinematic] gamble, and another opportunity to stretch. It’s a supernatural thriller, territory he’s familiar with, but taken to a raunchy, grotesque extreme. But director Alexandre Aja, whose background is mostly in straight-up horror (“High Tension,” “The Hills Have Eyes”), has trouble navigating the shifts between broad humor and intense scares. At the same time, some of the most entertaining moments come in the form of wildly graphic violence, reminiscent of Aja’s hilariously campy “Piranha 3D,” but there’s so much else happening here that those images almost feel like they belong in another movie. There are some clever ideas in the script from Keith Bunin, based on the novel by Joe Hill, but they get mixed up in some awkward tonal juggling.
120 minutes ‧ R ‧ 2014
Christy Lemire
October 31, 2014