Ok, having seen this same ending several times just this year, I'm going to either have to give up and stop watching horror movies, or just resign myself to the Volcano/Dante's Peak effect. Movie ideas really do seem to come in twos or threes like babies, but this ending has been done four times in the last couple years. Twice is forgivable, but four times?
Anyway, I almost didn't watch this one because I made the mistake of reading online reviews and thought I knew how it ended. Then I saw a preview and realized that Donal Logue was in it so I decided to give it a go. He's always good, even in stuff like this that doesn't deserve him. It also turned out that the ending I thought I would see is not the one I got.
It's an ok little mystery, not scary and really geared more toward a younger crowd; the main girl is Miranda Cosgrove, who's ok but not very interesting. We have the obligatory "the main character's mother died recently and said character is on medication so may not be in control of all her faculties" plot device, which will allow us to wonder for the rest of the movie if she is just paranoid/crazy/whatever. The "is she crazy" thing is really overdone and I personally don't like the excuse that they're "just crazy" in any genre of movie. I think a real motive is more interesting. But that's just me. So then she starts seeing and hearing weird things in the house and begins to suspect that the neighbor across the street (played by Tom Sizemore - I know, what?!) was involved in the disappearance of the girl we saw at the very beginning of the film, being murdered in some kind of basement. Main girl makes accusations, gets depressed that no one believes her, does some Scooby Doo investigating and after an hour and twenty minutes of all this wandering around the house and refusing to take her meds, she uncovers the real truth - no spoilers here, but like I said, it is the same ending as at least three other horror films that I'm not going to name. The first time I saw this ending, it fit the movie and wasn't made out to be a big deal. It wasn't a let down because it was original - I hadn't seen it yet so didn't give it much thought. That movie was also really creepy and well done, so even if I didn't like the twist I would have forgiven it. How much you enjoy the movie has to outweigh how clever the ending is because otherwise we would all just fast forward to the last five minutes, right? The next time I saw this ending the whole movie was a blast and I vaguely thought of the first movie with the same twist but they were such different types of horror (one a serious and creepy thriller and the other more of a horror comedy) that it didn't bother me. The third time, it was a let down. Why? Because it sort of made the rest of the movie not make sense. I found an explanation online and felt a little better about it, but when that movie ended, I just sat there thinking that it didn't make sense. Why had all those things happened? Fortunately, the fourth time it feels old and tired but at least it doesn't negate anything that happens before it and makes sense in a way. So I'm ok with it, though I am getting tired of seeing the same things in five different movies. But you know what they say, there's nothing new...
In any case, I'm not really recommending it because the whole thing is a little too slow and boring, and by the time you get to the big reveal you probably won't care anymore. But it's certainly not the most offensive horror movie I've seen lately - please see my review of Suspension (2015) for the winner of that title.
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