From a purely "critical" point of view, this movie is pretty much garbage. It's an amalgamation of many parts that it has stolen from other, far better, movies. By transplanting the movie to the exotic locale of India, the movie hopes we forget that we've seen this all before. That's the critic in me speaking, though. From the point of view of entertainment, I would say, though, that the movie has enough moments to keep it from falling into horrid and bland territory.
The mom we all love to hate from THE WALKING DEAD plays to type here, as once again she has failed her children miserably. We start at the middle of the story, though, seeing a family dealing with the loss of their son (because we haven't seen that a thousand times in horror). Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori from TWD) and Jeremy Sisto play a couple who have moved to India. Through a series of reveals, we come to learn that an accident led to the mother and her two children trapped in their car as it descends underwater. She can only save one and makes a difficult choice, leading to the death of their boy.
Their caretaker has a solution, though. She knows of a temple where the dead can visit the living, allowing them to speak to lost loved ones. There is a dire warning, though, that this is only a visit and she is not to open the door, lest terrors await. Of course, our mother makes that fateful choice, opens the door and lets a malevolent spirit into their lives. If all of this sounds a little familiar, that's because it is a pretty blatant ripoff of PET SEMETARY. There are those that would tell you it's homage, but one man's homage is another man's stolen goods and this is a little too stolen. There are clues all over that they have done this, going so far as to use a picture of PET SEMETARY's director in the movie and naming the dog Winston (first name of Churchhill, who the cat was named for in PS). The stolen ideas don't stop there, either, as the makeup design for the boy is pretty much an exact replica of the famous ghost boy in del Toror's masterpiece, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE.
I'm going to nitpick another thing that bothers me here. Mom goes to a creep temple in the woods. She is told that the spirit will visit her here, but she is not to open the door. The spirit is outside the temple, knocking on the door. How, exactly, was she supposed to ever return home if she is inside the temple and is not able to open the door to the outside? A minor point, but one that stuck with me for awhile.
There is, also, a little too much going on here. We have the spirit of their boy, who is not the sweet little thing that they lost. He is angry and does terrible things to the family. We, also, get a creepy goddess, who is pretty much the girl from THE RING with slightly different makeup. It is angry that a spirit has escaped its' realm and come back for it, so now there is not just one spirit after the family, but two. That's not enough drama, apparently, because there is also some sort of death cult that keeps showing up out of the blue.
What saves the movie from disaster is the locale. I cannot recall another horror movie in my recent memory held in India and the location and setting gives it a different feel. The goddess feels like every other creep Asian horror icon, but the death cult is something I haven't seen used since THE TEMPLE OF DOOM when Indiana Jones battled with one. The house the family lives in is beautiful and the scene where mom runs through the streets of India looking for her little girl feel claustrophobic and would not have worked as well in another locale.
That is not enough to save this from being anything more than a forgettable movie, but one you won't regret watching. You'll just not be in any rush to ever watch it again.
One more note, can we stop with the dog deaths, Hollywood? Once upon a time, it was daring to kill a dog in a movie. People were shocked by it and, as a result, it had emotional resonance. It was an effective way to unsettle an audience. Now, every horror movie goes out of its' way to show us a dog in the opening scenes, which we just know will end up dead or injured. It's lazy writing and lazy film making.
The mom we all love to hate from THE WALKING DEAD plays to type here, as once again she has failed her children miserably. We start at the middle of the story, though, seeing a family dealing with the loss of their son (because we haven't seen that a thousand times in horror). Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori from TWD) and Jeremy Sisto play a couple who have moved to India. Through a series of reveals, we come to learn that an accident led to the mother and her two children trapped in their car as it descends underwater. She can only save one and makes a difficult choice, leading to the death of their boy.
Their caretaker has a solution, though. She knows of a temple where the dead can visit the living, allowing them to speak to lost loved ones. There is a dire warning, though, that this is only a visit and she is not to open the door, lest terrors await. Of course, our mother makes that fateful choice, opens the door and lets a malevolent spirit into their lives. If all of this sounds a little familiar, that's because it is a pretty blatant ripoff of PET SEMETARY. There are those that would tell you it's homage, but one man's homage is another man's stolen goods and this is a little too stolen. There are clues all over that they have done this, going so far as to use a picture of PET SEMETARY's director in the movie and naming the dog Winston (first name of Churchhill, who the cat was named for in PS). The stolen ideas don't stop there, either, as the makeup design for the boy is pretty much an exact replica of the famous ghost boy in del Toror's masterpiece, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE.
I'm going to nitpick another thing that bothers me here. Mom goes to a creep temple in the woods. She is told that the spirit will visit her here, but she is not to open the door. The spirit is outside the temple, knocking on the door. How, exactly, was she supposed to ever return home if she is inside the temple and is not able to open the door to the outside? A minor point, but one that stuck with me for awhile.
There is, also, a little too much going on here. We have the spirit of their boy, who is not the sweet little thing that they lost. He is angry and does terrible things to the family. We, also, get a creepy goddess, who is pretty much the girl from THE RING with slightly different makeup. It is angry that a spirit has escaped its' realm and come back for it, so now there is not just one spirit after the family, but two. That's not enough drama, apparently, because there is also some sort of death cult that keeps showing up out of the blue.
What saves the movie from disaster is the locale. I cannot recall another horror movie in my recent memory held in India and the location and setting gives it a different feel. The goddess feels like every other creep Asian horror icon, but the death cult is something I haven't seen used since THE TEMPLE OF DOOM when Indiana Jones battled with one. The house the family lives in is beautiful and the scene where mom runs through the streets of India looking for her little girl feel claustrophobic and would not have worked as well in another locale.
That is not enough to save this from being anything more than a forgettable movie, but one you won't regret watching. You'll just not be in any rush to ever watch it again.
One more note, can we stop with the dog deaths, Hollywood? Once upon a time, it was daring to kill a dog in a movie. People were shocked by it and, as a result, it had emotional resonance. It was an effective way to unsettle an audience. Now, every horror movie goes out of its' way to show us a dog in the opening scenes, which we just know will end up dead or injured. It's lazy writing and lazy film making.