For about the first forty minutes or so, this wasn't a bad movie at all. Neve McIntosh plays the distraught mother convincingly and Shaun Dooley does a fine job as a one-night stand who winds up really regretting that impulse. Despite a few minor stumbles, the film develops an engrossingly claustrophobic atmosphere of terror and paranoia.
Which then crumbles under the weight of its muddled storyline and pedestrian plotting. For example, one particularly annoying "twist" occurs when they have Dooley attacked and pulled out of sight by the (still-unseen) monster while he's trying to climb into the attic, only to pop back up outside a few minutes later with no visible injuries and only a slight limp to show for the encounter.
I guess mutant hell-beasts are like bears: play dead and maybe they'll leave you alone.
The director was certainly smart not to show us much of the creature -- because what you do see isn't particularly frightening. (In fact, it reminded me of nothing so much as one of the boogeymen in the old Laurel and Hardy film, "March of the Wooden Soldiers".) But that's forgivable, so long as you don't climax your story by having your fearsome super-fast, super-strong monster -- which in the last hour and ten minutes has offed several of her neighbors and made mincemeat out of some heavily-armed special forces dunderheads -- summarily dispatched by a fireplace poker!
I get the "frantic mom protecting her cub" angle, but it has to make you wonder what all the fuss was about. Maybe they should have equipped those SAS guys with sticks with a nail in them instead of assault rifles.
And I know people don't always act reasonably when they're under extreme stress, but a daughter who looks her mother square in the face while deliberately locking her outside -- when she knows a savage, murderous creature is lurking about -- then just turns and walks away, all on account of some abandonment issues? That's cold. It completely destroyed any sympathy I might have had for the selfish, spiteful little drama queen.
This was a good try. I'd have no hesitation about checking out another film by this director. It's not so bad that I'd urge people to give it a miss entirely, but it's disappointing to see a movie which initially had so much going for it end up missing the mark so badly.
Which then crumbles under the weight of its muddled storyline and pedestrian plotting. For example, one particularly annoying "twist" occurs when they have Dooley attacked and pulled out of sight by the (still-unseen) monster while he's trying to climb into the attic, only to pop back up outside a few minutes later with no visible injuries and only a slight limp to show for the encounter.
I guess mutant hell-beasts are like bears: play dead and maybe they'll leave you alone.
The director was certainly smart not to show us much of the creature -- because what you do see isn't particularly frightening. (In fact, it reminded me of nothing so much as one of the boogeymen in the old Laurel and Hardy film, "March of the Wooden Soldiers".) But that's forgivable, so long as you don't climax your story by having your fearsome super-fast, super-strong monster -- which in the last hour and ten minutes has offed several of her neighbors and made mincemeat out of some heavily-armed special forces dunderheads -- summarily dispatched by a fireplace poker!
I get the "frantic mom protecting her cub" angle, but it has to make you wonder what all the fuss was about. Maybe they should have equipped those SAS guys with sticks with a nail in them instead of assault rifles.
And I know people don't always act reasonably when they're under extreme stress, but a daughter who looks her mother square in the face while deliberately locking her outside -- when she knows a savage, murderous creature is lurking about -- then just turns and walks away, all on account of some abandonment issues? That's cold. It completely destroyed any sympathy I might have had for the selfish, spiteful little drama queen.
This was a good try. I'd have no hesitation about checking out another film by this director. It's not so bad that I'd urge people to give it a miss entirely, but it's disappointing to see a movie which initially had so much going for it end up missing the mark so badly.