It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

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.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This is generally overwrought and feels far too long in terms of the limited story it's telling. Despite this, it seems like a lot may have been left on the cutting room floor. There's a lot of darting around in the narrative between the flashbacks and present day, and on focus on certain characters and motifs. The result is a sense that the editors and director have lost control of the movie, and that they can't decide what they want to say or how. A bit of discipline could have helped, maybe forcing out certain elements and stylistic flourishes to keep the narrative more streamlined. I'm thinking especially in the latter part of the film here. At this point I think it goes into too many horror film territories, as if deciding it has to appeal to more eclectic and contemporary tastes.The acting is appalling from the three female characters, two of whom are children - though the worst is from Maria Bello. The fact there is the arbitrary American in order to boost the film's transatlantic profile we'll gloss over. Why does she have to scream, shout, and thrash around so much? You feel a lack of sympathy with her, and her daughter. When the film ramps up in the later stages the child actors really overact. Direction could be partly to blame on this front. Sean Bean manages his usual capable and impassioned job, and is believable. Also good is the understated and studied handyman character. In conclusion, this is a mess with a lot of shouting, running, swimming and smashing things. The rather underused Welsh mythology concept could have been developed better within the piece, making for a less generic horror film. Crucially it isn't scary, or interesting, or emotionally moving. You're soon looking to see how long is left and considering making a cup of tea.

Whilst on a trip to Wales, Adèlle and James's teenaged daughter goes missing and is presumed to have drowned. In her place another teenaged girl named Ebrill appears, who apparently died fifty years earlier. Through the process of trying to discover what happened to her daughter, Adèlle uncovers a disturbing secret involving the town.Most reviewers already point out that the main problem with this film is its lack of originality. I think that at its core, the film actually has a reasonably unique concept concerning an alternate reality (Anwyn - which is a sort of afterlife), but the film mostly resorts to clichéd scare tactics and fails to really make good use of its subject matter. This kicks in right from the start of the film, which opens with the main character experiencing the loss of her daughter before she is woken up suddenly and we realize that it was simply a dream (as well as a premonition of what will happen later).Unfortunately for its stars, the film gives them little to work with. With the exception of establishing for no apparent reason that Adèlle is a smoker (which is odd, considering smoking can lead to higher certificates and therefore lower box office intake), there is virtually no character development. Sean Bean is wasted, as his character James has no personality whatsoever and might as well have been played by a cardboard cut-out. Furthermore, while an oddly placed flashback suggests that Adèlle and James may have had some complicated relationship problems, they get along suspiciously well. They don't dislike each other and they don't show any affection for each other. You'd think that the fact they have a daughter together might make their relationship a little more interesting, but the two of them only have about as much chemistry as I have with my postman.One thing that the film offers that sets it out from many ordinary horror films is its setting of the Welsh countryside. Most of the film takes place by the sea and surprisingly for a film with such a title, it is a very bright horror film. The day time scenes tend to be the more interesting ones, including a scene in which a character standing dangerously close to the edge of a cliff must dodge a horde of sheep racing towards them. I can't say that I've seen that before. However, when it gets dark, we're forced to watch the standard horror scene in which a person walks around a dark place with a torch until they uncover something scary. While comedies at least have to come up with new jokes, it seems to me that there is no end to the number of times a horror film can reuse what is essentially exactly the same scene as we've already seen in countless other films.The film then makes use of another plot device I didn't need to see yet again, as Adèlle must uncover the dark and somewhat supernatural history of the town. But all the characters around her think that she's crazy and only try to get in her way. Luckily it doesn't last too long and this is another one of the film's strengths – it progresses at a nice fast pace instead of ever dwelling on the same subject for too long.My main problem with this film's first scene, in which we establish that Adèlle has a tendency to see things that turn out not to be real, is that it means that for the remainder of the film we cannot take anything at face value. So when a girl comes back from the dead, it's difficult to feel as moved by it as we perhaps should because we already know that Adèlle might have made the whole thing up in her mind. And then when James meets the girl and doesn't seem to think that this strange girl who has appeared in an otherwise fairly deserted town is a big deal (because his character is made out of cardboard), it's also hard to feel that her resurrection is in any way significant.And that for me is what weakened the film the most. It sets out to be a supernatural horror, but none of its supernatural moments pack any punch (It's far from Pinhead's entrances in the Hellraiser films). It would have been nice to be fascinated when Ebrill returns from the dead.Deep beneath the clichés is an interesting myth and a creepy story concerning a mass suicide that was encouraged by a pastor. Unfortunately while it provides some of the setup for the events of the film, it does not make up for much of the film's runtime and is mostly told through some brief flashbacks whilst a Welshman tells the story to Adèlle. It's a shame, because it was easily the most interesting part of the film for me and I would much rather have seen a film set in the mid 20th century about a mass suicide in a small Welsh town.I think that the most important thing for a filmmaker to keep in mind when making a film that deals with characters crossing between the real world and an alternate reality, is that the more real the real-life scenes feel, the more surreal and interesting the fantasy scenes will feel. Thanks to a lack of character development and its useless dream sequences, this film fails to create a clear distinction between the two realities and they just sort of blend together. Neither world is established enough to create a contrast.I don't think that the writers or the director have managed to make much out of their initial ideas here, but at least they tried and at least the film is not a sequel.

First off, anyone giving this movie less than a 9 should really re-watch it. It is based on an old Gaelic myth, and manages not to cheese it up one bit. As far as horror movies go, I seriously have yet found a movie that made my heart thump as well as kept my mind going like this one. It's one of those movies like say...Donnie Darko.,.. where the more you watch it, the more you figure out, and the more you realize how genius the writer(s) were. If you like genuinely genius thriller/horror movies with beautiful cinematography and amazing acting, please watch this. Sean Bean and Maria Bello tore it UP! If you enjoy movies like The Fall, Donnia Darko, What Dreams May Come, Pan's Labyrinth, The Orphanage, Sixth Sense, The Others... Then this movie is one you'll want to pick up. It may change your life. =)

First off - to the positives. This movie is beautiful in terms of cinematography. The locations where they filmed looked like really beautiful places. However The cinematography is not all this movie has to stand on (Why would I give it 7 then?).The acting of this movie - in terms of the genre is actually very redeeming. I have seen a couple of horror films in the past and I have seen actors look blankly when they're supposed to be scared (I've seen a few of the "worst movie of all time" votes). Maria Bello and Sean Bean are very good actors and it shows in this movie.Without the scares this movie in terms of writing also is very good (becausee this is the same person who wrote Ginger Snaps 3 I was very surprised) you know the emotions that Adele and James are going through. A previous reviewer compared it to the Spanish movie El Orfanto (The Orphanage), The drama portrayed in El Orfanto is much better in comparison. I just thought I'd point that out.So as far as movies that are basically devoid of any scares (but mainly due to the sound engineer putting in every cliché imaginable) this is worth the watch.