So. Once again, I have to be honest – as much as I love going to see horror movies, I was actually quite disappointed in this film.
From the trailers, this movie had a lot of potential. It looked like it might be more of a psychological horror, where the main threat isn’t actually seen, and that’s something I don’t see very often…and would love to see more of in horror, where what you don’t see is infinitely more scary than what you do see.
Sadly, that was not the case here.
Okay, so a positive in this movie was the relationship between the two sisters: Sadie and Sawyer. It very much felt like Sadie had stepped up to parent Sawyer after their mother’s death. Will was clearly making an effort with his youngest daughter, but he did ignore Sadie’s needs…even when she tried to talk to him about how she was feeling after her mother’s death. I mean, I know that he was grieving his wife’s death, but come on!
Unfortunately, the majority of the characters in this movie (apart from Sadie and Sawyer) were either really unlikable, or just felt like they were there as filler. I thought perhaps there’d be something of a relationship shown between Sadie and Bethany, but instead, the movie seemed more focused on the conflicts between Sadie and Natalie. And to be quite honest, her entire ‘friend’ group (minus Bethany, but she really wasn’t a very good friend) just seemed to hate her. And to be honest – as the viewer, it definitely seemed to me that the group slammed the door shut on Sadie when she was showing them where Lester hung himself. She was clearly traumatised and grieving and none of them saw a problem with Natalie telling her she shouldn’t be wearing her mother’s dress, that clearly had a lot of meaning to her? Yeah, with friends like that, who needs enemies?
Unfortunately, the rest of the secondary characters in this movie were just as disappointing. The whole movie seemed to be about tormenting Sawyer. She was the one the boogeyman was mainly after (although it did target Sadie as well)…and the police officer, instead of showing some small measure of compassion, decided to question Sadie about a man’s supposed suicide while Sadie is holding her frightened sister. And Will just stands there and lets it happen? I take back what I said about him making an effort with his youngest daughter. Just because her mother died, that doesn’t mean it’s suddenly okay to talk about whether or not a man really did kill himself in front of her. Oh…and don’t get me started on the psychiatrist, who exposed Sawyer to her fear so much, the girl actually wet herself!
On the whole, the only good thing about this movie was Sadie and Sawyer’s relationship. The horror was just cheap jump scares and as soon as the monster was shown, it removed the fear.
Come on, filmmakers! Give me something really good, with characters I’ll actually root for and a monster that’s actually scary!
I can’t recommend watching this movie. Even if you like horror you can just switch off for…this movie isn’t that good.
Ink of Blood 