the audience applauded

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Brett Simmons is a director who manages to challenge as well as enlighten through the horror genre with style and intelligence. Putting our spirituality and even our basic existential beliefs to the test, he uses a timeless story of terror to force us to examine the very basis of our own identity. Stephen Lang, giving a performance even more extraordinary than his sublime characterizations in Gettysburg and Gods and Generals, breaks your heart with his humanity while shocking us with his incredible depravity. The violence is sudden and startling but never gratuitous. It serves an important purpose if we are to accept the greater questions presented in the film. The climax is both stunning and courageous and perhaps Lang is one of the few actors capable of pulling off the overwhelming task given him by director Simmons. The moody cinematography and understated score create an atmosphere that is both beautifully haunting and a bit unnatural to our senses. All these elements come together perfectly in one of the most impressive films of the last decade.

"The Monkey's Paw" is a short story published by the English novelist William Wymark Jacobs in 1902. It is by far his most famous work, and this is far from the first adaptation for broadcast media. In the original, a man is given a monkey's paw and told it will grant the owner three wishes. What would you wish for? For most people, a few greenbacks would not be amiss, so the new owner wishes for money, and it comes. As compensation for the death of his son in an industrial accident. You see where this is leading?If you were thinking this is the origin of the phrase "Be careful what you wish for", that predates not only W.W. but the Great J.C. You are however on the right lines.This 21st Century adaptation brings the story right up to date transferring it to the Deep South. Apart from the paw and the three wishes, there is little in common with the original, but this is a truly superior psychological/mystical effort of which the long dead Jacobs would surely approve.

In New Orleans, Jake Tilton (C.J. Thomason) works in transportation business as assistant of the supervisor Gillespie (Daniel Hugh Kelly) with his friends Anthony "Tony" Cobb (Stephen Lang) and Catfish (Corbin Bleu). When the manager Kevin (Andy Favreau), who got married to Jake's former girlfriend Olivia Corbin (Michelle Pierce), fires Gillespie, Jake and Cobb meet him drinking in a bar and Gillespie gives a magical monkey's paw to Jake telling that it grants three wishes to the owner. Jake does not believe in his words but he wishes a nice car that is parked at the bar. Soon he and Cobb discover the keys inside the car and Jake drives the car. However he has a car accident and Cobb dies. Then he wishes that Cobb resurrects and his friend becomes a soulless undead. Cobb wishes that Jake uses his last wish to make his son to love him, but Jake has thrown the paw away. Cobb decides to kill everyone connected to Jake to force him to use the monkey's paw to grant his wish. In 1902, in England, the writer W. W. Jacob published the supernatural short story "The Monkey Paw" where the owner of a monkey's paw is granted with three wishes with tragic consequences. In Tales from the Crypt (1972), there is a segment with the title "Wish you Were Here" based on this short story where a bankrupted businessman uses a statue with the legend that it could grant three wishes to the owner to make the wishes that lead him to eternal damnation. "The Monkey's Paw" is a horror movie with a good version also based on this short story with the idea that you shall be careful with what you wish for. The creepy and gore story takes place in the mystical New Orleans and does not disappoint fans of horror. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not Available on VHS / DVD / Blu-Ray

Oh boy. Another mildly amusing Victorian horror story has been converted into another American slasher borefest.The recipe how to do it is very simple: Ignore the original setting of the story an chose today's America instead. You may choose mildly interesting place like New Orleans if you prefer to make the story somewhat exotic.Get rid of original characters of the story and replace them with good looking young folks. They are more interesting to look at and the viewer will forgive them as they behave as brain dead. Also ignore the original mythology and premises of the story - replace all these cults and gods and mysterious sellers just with a drunken boy in a bar. This will also explain why the folks use powerful magical devices with an incredible level of stupidity: They just do not believe it actually works.And now for the real "American twist of the original story": The story is usually about the device itself and the ways how the main character plans to use it without the backfire as it was advertised by its seller. Just do not care about the device at all and just focus on cheap TV soap grade interpersonal relationships of the young and stupid characters. No real depth is really needed as in the TV.The plot it is also simple: The first third will be wasted on the introduction of the characters and their TV soap opera class problems. Then for a 60 seconds there is a device and the rest of the movie is running, driving, fighting, screaming, slashing, shouting and crying. You know - emotions. The more people are killed the better - you need a lot of blood in the horror stories these days. You know: How folks should understand their are watching the horror if there is no blood? Just do not forget: The main enemy must be older man with a beard. That makes him different from the young lovable characters.In the end please do not forget to show the plot device for about 5 seconds so the viewers can know that if they pay a lot for a tickets and DVDs they may have a whole series made in this very manner. Sort of preview I would say.I really have no idea why Americans hate so much other cultures so they feel entitled to "upgrade" their horror story to this mild tasting bland coca-cola-KFC blend. But it is really horrid. What's even worse I do love original American horror stories. Just this sort of cultural rape made by brain dead script writers and producers makes me sick. It's insulting and what is more - it's really stupid as this makes resulting coca-cola-KFC blend sooooo predictable and boring.Seriously: Stop doing that. Please just stop doing that. It fails most of the time. Do what you can do very well: Variations like The Cabin in the Woods. This was not dumbing down the original stories but improving over them by telling an entirely new story inspired on the older ones. That was way better.