An old favorite of my friend's, apparently. A tree is knocked over in a kid's backyard by a big storm. The kid and his friend start digging into the hole left behind and open a doorway to some nether realm populated with weird little stop-motion gremlin things. The kid's older sister, left in charge while the parents are away, is reluctant to believe him because of peer pressure from idiotic drunk teen guys. Even after the kid starts levitating against his will in the living room, in front of a dozen witnesses.
Some of the practical effects are very good. The little stop-motion monsters have a nice design. There's a sequence when it appears the parents are home, but as things get weird, the boy's fingers sink into his father's face as it melts.
There's one scene where the kids are trying to sneak into the basement to retrieve notes on a ritual they want to try and the main kid catches a brief glimpse of his family's photo. Only now everyone in it other than him is bleeding and has a broken neck. And he chooses not to point it out to his sister, which is an interesting choice, although by that time they already know they're in the deep end, so there's no point.
(My friend and I debated whether that prop was a painting, or if they had the cast take a photo done up like that. I thought it looked painted, she thought photograph.)
I missed the explanation for why the initial attempt at an exorcism didn't work as it first appeared. Up to that point, the creatures from the gate had been a little creepy, but ultimately not too threatening. So it would have been an anti-climactic conclusion.
After that point, though, the odds seemed to swing so far against them it was hard to believe any of them survived. Neither of us could understand why the giant creature picks the kid up by the hand, then sets him down with an eyeball embedded in his hand, rather than just killing him. Didn't really get a satisfactory answer beyond, "they hadn't used Chekov's Model Rocket Kit yet."
No comments:
Post a Comment