If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A fairly sadistic and brutal opening scene, especially for what is basically a commercial horror flick with a little brat in the lead role. However, it gets comparatively tame after that. The premise of vicious little monsters who talk like Gollum is cute and fun, but the plot is quite undisciplined, the writer simply ignoring loose ends in order to move the story forward. For example, after the fat Aussie is attacked, neither the cops nor the Pearce are even a tiny bit curious about how you can "accidentally" get stabbed in several places with sharp objects just by working in a house. Nor do we find out whether Pearce and Holmes are shown the Polaroids that the brat made during the party in the library. The ending makes little sense: Katie Holmes's voice van be heard whispering to the little Gollums. So did she become one of them? Why and how?

This is scary without tons of blood. It does have some killing in it, but mostly it's creatures popping up in front or on the sides of the camera and they only appear in the dark, which means most of the movie is in darkness. Like the theater.

Yes this movie is not without flaws and maybe plot holes. But if there is a moment that I start actively seeking for plot holes and start lengthy debates about them, would mean I should stop watching movies and do something different. If I don't like something I move on and don't try to convince others how bad it is. So why did this movie work for me and not so much for many others here? Well it's not your typical slasher horror where lots of people die or get hurt. Actually no one dies and only one person gets badly hurt. Del Toro didn't direct this but as writer of the screenplay his influence is there. The story and character development must come from his hand and are for me the best parts of the movie. The performances of the 3 main characters and the interaction between them is splendid. Especially the young Bailee Madison as Sally blew me away. She carried this movie and deserves all the praise for pulling of such a difficult role for a child. I haven't seen the original and remain reluctant to do so. I know Sally was originally an adult. for some reason I don't think an adult as Sally works that well after seeing this movie. And another strong point is of course the setting, wow that mansion was just perfect for it. Beautiful interior and garden but than the contrast with that creepy cellar, splendid. And last but not least there is the creatures. OK their back story is not the most original but at least there is a back story. Some people complained the creatures didn't look scary (like old monkeys) but hey if you were attacked by a horde of creatures would you care if they looked scary? I think you would run and/or fight for your life and your heart would be racing. Besides it's not that you see them that often, which is a good thing. After all, what you don't see if often more scary than what you do. Maybe more drama than horror in the end but the combination works very well for me.

While the concept was alright, the crew producing the movie was excellent, the execution was horrible.The characters never use COMMON SENSE whatsoever. And I know many people lack it, but it gets way too ridiculous.That one part the girl caught one, no one mentioned that at all.There were too many parts that didn't add up to any realistic scenario and to me, that killed most of it's little contribution to horror films.The dad is a total moron.The people get "knocked up" and wake up coincidentally at specific moments, even if they get shaken up or stuff happens that should wake em up anyway.The critters are fun but I believe they're executed with a WANKERey attitude. These could be used much better than this crap.