Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Truly Dreadful Film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film is a well shot horror tragedy that gives the audience questions of what is going on next. I thought the main actress was good and the father was also a good character for this type of film who brings stability along with a good performance from the actor. The stepmom twist was good and not expected but i wont ruin it as horror fans should check this out for sure.

The only good thing I can say about this movie is Elizabeth Banks, but that still doesn't help this film out at all. She should just stick with comedy and what she is good at because after seeing this, horror is definitely not her strong suit. And the two girls that played the sisters were just horrible actors. I watched this with my girlfriend and every scene I could call out what was going to happen next and 99% of the time I was right. Other than them, the plot points had nothing to do with each other and this movie made no sense at all.. Horrible movie. The 40 year old virgin was more scary than this. Do not watch unless you want to be disappointed.....

Anna (Emily Browning) returns home from a psychiatric institution after her suicide attempt. She's been struggling after her mother's death in a fire. Her mother was ill and the caretaker Rachel Summers (Elizabeth Banks) is now her father Steven (David Strathairn)'s girlfriend. Her sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel) is convinced that Rachel killed their mother. She keeps having visions of 3 little kids. Her boyfriend Matt is killed presumably in an accident after she sees him in a vision. Her father is getting remarried to Rachel. The girls discover that Rachel is using a false identity. Anna suspects her to be Mildred Kemp who killed the 3 kids in her vision and disappeared.Emily Browning is great as a distressed teen and I like everybody in this. There is a moody ghostly sense through out the movie. This boils down to the ending. I completely understand if some people throw up their hands at the final twists. I personally scratched my head at first. In the end, I accepted it and like the movie. I could have easily gone the other way.

I have not seen the original – A Tale of Two Sisters – I was unaware that this was a remake when I watched it so I am unable to create comparisons between the two. If I had known, I probably would have been put off the American Remake and not bothered watching it – as they do have a reputation for being poor.The main problem with this movie is that it lacks any sort of atmosphere, it fails to build suspense and when it does come to the boil it leaves you cringing rather than being spooked. A big problem is that everything is revealed too early on; this kills all chances of suspense being built. With everything being revealed, everything there is a bump or Anna walks into the shadows you know what is in there and what is going to jump out. Once you have seen it, it is no longer anything to fear. There are some obvious scenes where it is really trying to build up the atmosphere and scare you but it really doesn't work, it all feels a little too predictable and leaves you thinking 'I've seen this done a thousand times'. It feels more like a thriller than a horror, and a badly done thriller at that.The acting is a mixed bag: Emily Browning (who plays Anna) gives a great performance; she is believable and makes you feel connected to the character. Elizabeth Banks (Rachel) also puts in a credible performance. However Arielle Kebbel (Alex) is quite awful, she really brings down some of the scenes with her acting.Usually 84 minutes would be a little short for a feature film but in this case it probably did it some favours. I'm sure the my rating would have dropped if this had been dragged out with a 120 minute run-time.I won't ruin it for you but the end of the movie actually saved it from an even worse rating by myself. IMDb is full of people saying how predictable it was and how they saw it coming a mile off but I didn't expect it. I am curious to see the original now and I am sure I will get round to watching it at some time.5/10