I had only seen a couple of commercials for this flick on tv before it came out in the theater. I was actually intrigued by the tagline that worked in conjuction with the commercials, ‘Once you believe, you die’, and the girl whispering ‘it’s not real…it’s not real…’it’s not real.’ I thought the premise looked interesting enough and had a good creepy vibe to it.
When the movie starts, we are presented with footage from 1973 that shows a group of people trying to contact a dead man named Charles Reaver. It is known as ‘The Charles Experiment’.
After that footage, we see a trio of college students trying what we should presume is the same experiment. It really reminded me of Flatliners, for some reason. Anyway, a table jumps and they get spooked, but don’t think much about it.
Now one of the guys from the trio goes to prepare to play house for a bit with his girlfriend in her parents house. Unfortunately for them, there is a ghost that has other ideas. Furniture starts moving by itself, doors open up on their own, and this mysterious black stuff starts showing up on surfaces all over the house. Hmmmm. Now they must solve the mystery of this ghost they let out and how to stop it.
The movie has some well paced scares, not unlike that of Paranormal Activity, but a bit more subtle. There weren’t any ‘jump-scares’ like in that ongoing series of movies. The scares were trying to be creepy, but they really weren’t.
In fact, everything in this movie you’ve probably seen done before in other movies that were better and more thought out. Movies that had actual stories and decent acting and characters you like.
To be honest, the trailer and tagline really lead you to believe that you are getting a completely different movie. I hate it when they do that. It’s like they know they have a boring, run of the mill film, so they think of other ways to market it. To misrepresent it. Well, mission accomplished with this one, Hollywood! You’ve done it again.
