Don't listen to the negative reviews

Crappy film

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Demon children horror movies are not really my thing. I mainly watched this movie because of Josh Holloway. Even though I am not a fan of the genre I did see a few and I must say I saw nothing original for this genre in this movie.Characters are all incompetent fools. Sure, I can see they had no experience kidnapping children, but the mistakes they kept on making were idiotic. I especially couldn't stand Roxanne. A typically annoying child obsessed woman. She is so dumb she has no problems showing the kid her face, yelling out her friend's names when talking to police and being over protective of that kid even after she finds out he is an evil little creepo. When she got killed I was just happy about it. Max is also overprotective I must say, took him way too long to finish this little devil, unbelievable he kept on refusing.The only character I liked was Vincent. Now that guy had some reality comprehension. His death scene was also the best done one. The only moment that really felt like part of a good thriller.When it comes to actors than I must say they all were good. I am sorry for them that as being such talented people they had to play such awful roles. Actually it seems Josh Holloway's part was written just based on Sawyer. He is Sawyer, I see nothing different about his acting, I just like this character less as he is 10 times more dumb and has no chance to be charming. Was curious to see how it went for all of them and it is good to know that they all had good careers, besides the kid who seems to have taken a break after it. But as I see he is back as a stuntman.So yes, I can't give this movie an above average rating as I see no originality, a bad script and that in no moment was it actually scary or unpredictable. I just throw in a few points for the fact that the actors were good, they made a beautiful scenery with all the snow even when filming in summer and that good camera work doesn't make one feel that the movie was shot in an amateur basement, but I doubt I would ever want to watch it again.

It started off interesting enough. I liked the opening scene and the kidnap scenario was kind of interesting. And then it just went downhill fast. Bad script, lousy direction and woeful acting (not entirely the actors fault given the bad script/direction) and a silly messy storyline make for a snooze-fest that had me reaching for the fastforward button very early in the show. The child actor was wooden and unconvincing. His acting abilities were limited to looking vaguely bored and looking vaguely smug. He wasn't creepy or scary. Just irritating and precocious. There was no suspense, no thrills, no scares, no intrigue, no drama, no originality, just nothing. I honestly can't see who would like this film. Finally, I couldn't care less about any of the characters or what happened to them, they were non-entities with no personalities or interesting characteristics. Except the kid, he was annoying me so badly with his wooden acting and lame smug expression I was hoping someone would kill him and put us all out of our misery. Fortunately that wasn't necessary as I simply pressed eject immediately after yet another smug look from the child and stopped watching the movie about half way through. Don't waste your time on this one. If you want to see truly creepy child actors, good acting, a good plot and experience true jump scares & suspense watch Mama instead.

Ordinarily I wouldn't have watched this movie since I hadn't heard a thing about it and the cover looked a bit cheesy. But there wasn't much else available so I took a gamble. We sat down to watch it with low expectations and after a somewhat shaky start it became so scary my wife bailed out and I had to watch the last half alone. Overall the character development is adequate for this type of movie but a bit implausible at times.** spoiler ahead **There were some familiar faces in this, when Sydney (Michael Rooker in a minor but well-done role)died I felt like I did when I watched Deep Blue Sea where Samuel L. Jackson bought it early on. I can see that Josh was played by a guy who was on Lost but I've never seen that show. I was pleased to see Gus from Psych in a serious role and his fate was a bit of a surprise, too. And Teryl Rothery from Stargate was good as the adoptive mother of "poor little David." The methods used for the killings is typical, heart attack and falling thru the ice which is good since the kid never wants to be connected to any of the deaths. The kid playing David who forces the deaths is eerie right from the start. It looked like David not only expected abduction but was happy to go along. They did telegraph the identity of the "mastermind" or at least I figured it out before the show was half over, but the reveal was still fun. The ending was quite clever with Josh deafening himself to obviate the kid's whispering and the final blow was surprisingly not upsetting. By then David was not a kid in my mind at all so they could have blown him up and I wouldn't have cared. It was done more or less in shadow so it's not explicit at all.They don't waste time trying to explain the kid's abilities, probably a mix of his artwork and whispering, so it's left up to the viewer to decide how he can do what he does which makes plot-holes much less likely. If it's whispers how can he control events miles away or even know about them? But if it's partly his drawings then who knows what he can do which was smarter than I expected.Acting, sets, wardrobe and script were all well-done and the SFX with the wolves was subdued but effective. I'm glad they didn't explain how the kid does things or how he got his abilities so it's not necessarily the "evil angel" he seems to suggest. Well worth the rental and if it's on TV for free I'd recommend it. It's unusual to sympathize with the bad guy/kidnappers but compared to the creepy-eyed kid it's not hard to do so with the exception of the third male kidnapper, Vince I think. He's so thoroughly unlikeable that I had hoped he'd be the first victim. A tiny complaint is that the girl, Roxanne, appeared to mother the kid too much and too early but that could be explained by her guilty conscience. 9/10 and I'll look for it again in the future.

It is one of those movies that look ordinary and start slow but catch up fast. I admit some of its plots look predictable but that is also the whole point. Human beings are all the same and all have similar weaknesses. I was particularly impressed with Josh Holloway's performance. He has talent and provided the right opportunity he can deliver. I can't say the same about Sarah Wayne Callies, she appeared to be struggling. It seemed a little light on horror for its story but otherwise gives a chilling experience nevertheless. And the ending was also good.Overall a movie with character.