There was a moment, about a half of the movie was over, when I told to myself: "This movie is slow, the dialogs are so theatrical, the acting is on an edge of desperate, script makes characters do things that have no logic... It is so old-fashioned... But I've finally found something different from today Hollywood nonsense, thank God!" But when the end finally came, I felt disappointed. Maybe I've expected too much after reading all the glorifying comments. Maybe I was too happy this movie wasn't a typical 1990's or 2000's confection. Maybe it was something new for the year it was released, but unlike some other old horrors hadn't passed the test of time.
I think the problem is in the suspense. Not only everything is obvious (as it often happens in bad horrors), but everything is revealed almost from the beginning. The hero (and all of us) get informed who does the killing and why. Yes, it is as it should happen in reality. In fact, some horrors have a lack of logic when the secret that many people know isn't told to the main character, or there are only hidden trails and hints. Here people do it logically: they are afraid and tell the investigators all they know. Yes, it is good for logic and credibility of the movie, but is no good for suspense. And how can you do a good old-fashioned horror without suspense? So in the end you ask yourself what it was all about. If you find truth in the middle of horror or thriller, the rest is just waiting for closing credits. This is not a soap opera to find which of the characters will marry and the rest will die. You've got to have something unrevealed, hidden, a secret that will justify the length of the movie. Imagine what would Psycho look like if someone said in the middle of the movie: "Be careful, that Bates guy has a dead mother hidden in the basement!" Or if Poirot suddenly turned to camera and said "I know John did it, I only need few details to prove it.
You have to expect something. In movies like Thing or Nightmare on Elm Street you slowly discover the truth before the end, but you wait to see what will happen to the characters. This movie doesn't make you interested in its characters. Still, without a danger of making spoilers, because nothing is happening that should be untold, I'd ask about Ruth, who seemed to help others; but she knew the whole truth and did nothing to prevent misery and death until a pure revenge made her do it. And she appears to be a positive character?! There are holes in the story that could, as Beatles said, fill the Albert Hall. Why was Kruger killed so quickly before he might find anything, and doctor was preserved when many of people had a chance and motif to get rid of him? Why would a good little girl become a hostile ghost? Because of her mother's hate? Then, if Monica was stolen, why wouldn't her mother try to find her; if she payed for her schooling and took care for her from the distance (as she said), why would she suddenly want her dead? If Melissa was the evil revenging to people guilty for her death, what reason would she have to hate her younger sister (it could be understood if she stayed with her mother and got all her love and attention, but we know she was sent away!)? Almost every scene and every character provokes such questions.
Don't, however, let this comment cause avoiding this movie. It is still better than those they make today. Modern ones are usually so bad that they don't even make you ask questions I've written. And when you see a man running through rooms, discovering that it always the same room he is entering and leaving, and running so fast that he is chasing himself, you'll maybe laugh, but that scene is a pure fantasy, something between Adams Family and Mulholland Drive, the only place where you finally cross the edge of physics and reality. If the director was capable of doing that scene, pity he didn't do it more often. This could be a most poetic of all horrors.
I think the problem is in the suspense. Not only everything is obvious (as it often happens in bad horrors), but everything is revealed almost from the beginning. The hero (and all of us) get informed who does the killing and why. Yes, it is as it should happen in reality. In fact, some horrors have a lack of logic when the secret that many people know isn't told to the main character, or there are only hidden trails and hints. Here people do it logically: they are afraid and tell the investigators all they know. Yes, it is good for logic and credibility of the movie, but is no good for suspense. And how can you do a good old-fashioned horror without suspense? So in the end you ask yourself what it was all about. If you find truth in the middle of horror or thriller, the rest is just waiting for closing credits. This is not a soap opera to find which of the characters will marry and the rest will die. You've got to have something unrevealed, hidden, a secret that will justify the length of the movie. Imagine what would Psycho look like if someone said in the middle of the movie: "Be careful, that Bates guy has a dead mother hidden in the basement!" Or if Poirot suddenly turned to camera and said "I know John did it, I only need few details to prove it.
You have to expect something. In movies like Thing or Nightmare on Elm Street you slowly discover the truth before the end, but you wait to see what will happen to the characters. This movie doesn't make you interested in its characters. Still, without a danger of making spoilers, because nothing is happening that should be untold, I'd ask about Ruth, who seemed to help others; but she knew the whole truth and did nothing to prevent misery and death until a pure revenge made her do it. And she appears to be a positive character?! There are holes in the story that could, as Beatles said, fill the Albert Hall. Why was Kruger killed so quickly before he might find anything, and doctor was preserved when many of people had a chance and motif to get rid of him? Why would a good little girl become a hostile ghost? Because of her mother's hate? Then, if Monica was stolen, why wouldn't her mother try to find her; if she payed for her schooling and took care for her from the distance (as she said), why would she suddenly want her dead? If Melissa was the evil revenging to people guilty for her death, what reason would she have to hate her younger sister (it could be understood if she stayed with her mother and got all her love and attention, but we know she was sent away!)? Almost every scene and every character provokes such questions.
Don't, however, let this comment cause avoiding this movie. It is still better than those they make today. Modern ones are usually so bad that they don't even make you ask questions I've written. And when you see a man running through rooms, discovering that it always the same room he is entering and leaving, and running so fast that he is chasing himself, you'll maybe laugh, but that scene is a pure fantasy, something between Adams Family and Mulholland Drive, the only place where you finally cross the edge of physics and reality. If the director was capable of doing that scene, pity he didn't do it more often. This could be a most poetic of all horrors.