GREAT FUCKING MOVIE
Okay, so I'm the biggest geek ever and I watch A Haunting faithfully. I love that show. And, the two-parter episode in question that served as inspiration for this film is one of my favourites. Obviously the bit about necromancy, seances, and black magic wasn't part of the actual haunting that occurred, but I did enjoy that as an add-in. It was clever as hell and scary to boot.
This movie was so amazingly good I can't even wrap my head around it. I loved every second of it. The concept of people who are dying being more subjective to paranormal attacks was just...gold. Solid gold. I loved it, I loved the symbolism with the two dead boys poem. I got shivers when Matt said that he and Jonah were but two dead boys getting up to fight. Good choice. Splendid use.
I noticed that religion and faith was a motif in this film, but it didn't bother me at all because it was pulled off so fluidly and so...beautifully. You need to have faith to overcome a haunting, and the fact that faith helped to cure Matt's cancer didn't really bother me because it wasn't terribly unrealistic.
Another thing that I adored was the fact that the family was slowly falling apart due to financial stress. The scene with the father coming home drunk and smashing all the light bulbs was so perfect. Very little do you see a ghost story that actually delves into the psychological aspect of a haunting, and that was just a great scene. I vaguely remember the father getting pissed about the electric bills in the Haunting episode, and I was glad to see that incorperated into the film.
As for the scare factor, I wasn't nearly as frightened as I thought I was going to be. That's okay, though, because the plot was extremely well developed.
Greg's here and we're seeing it again later. More to come!