This gets a lot of hype for being a scary film, and it's really not. It's more of a true life drama based on a haunting that.... probably never really happened.
Or at least I'm skeptical about it.
The main problem is that it tries to show a little too much. The first rape really didn't, and the close ups and jerky movement made it a little more chilling... and then they tried to to the Fx game and show a little more... and that's there the cheese came in.
This is the kind of movie that does a lot better if the hide things in the shadows.
However... it does build tension and suspense and is builds it pretty well. It leaves you with a paranoid nervous feeling as you are watching it and, that is really the reason why people like me watch movies like this... to illicate a visceral emotional response, and, in this case, rather than fear it's nervous paranoia...
... and that is just as good, it puts the film in the mission accomplished category, it did what it's supposed to do.
But the cheese. I'm tempted to say that the technology wasn't there to make it look anything but cheesy, however... no... even today that doesn't work in movies. What works is showing less, inferring more, and allowing the viewers' own imagination to, well, to scare the heck out of them.
Despite that, however, it's still a movie that builds suspense, it's still a movie that makes the viewer nervous, and that is the reason we watch these movies, and it does do that better than most.
