(This review may contain spoilers).
As horror films go, I actually found this one to be quite entertaining to watch. It was easy to empathise with Mike and Kristen losing their child, especially since that’s a scary experience for parents, even when said child’s just wandered off and is quickly found again.
The very first scene was quite an effective one, as it was disturbing to watch, but did a really good job of setting the scene. While I did feel it was deliberate emotional manipulation to show the children in a dangerous situation, there’s no question it did work.
It was good to see the joint effects losing Charlie had on his parents and how they had to deal with his loss. I thought it was good to see the links with the ‘Pay The Ghost’, though by the end of the movie, I was somewhat confused by how the rules worked. I felt it went from a movie with a faint supernatural slant to a completely otherworldly film. It was good to learn about the ghost and get some answers by the end of the movie, rather than everything left to the imagination, but the ghost seemed to be more powerful than I was expecting.
I felt the movie was entertaining to watch, but I wouldn’t really be bothered about watching it again. There were a few good scenes, but although it did explain most of what was going on with the ghost, I felt that the feel of the movie changed a lot towards the end, despite the fact I thought the actors portrayed the characters they were playing really well. I did, however, feel that the police officer involved in the case wasn’t as competent as he could have been. Obviously, while it was understandable he wouldn’t believe in the supernatural, I felt he fell into the trap of assuming the main character was involved in something without looking deeper. In the words of Sherlock: ‘Once you take out the impossible, whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth’. Or something like that.
Ink of Blood 