"I know what you're doing. I will not let you hurt my children."

Year: 2009

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Writers: David Johnson, Alex Mace (story)

After a family adopts a 9-year-old girl, some weird and dangerous things start to happen: weird accidents, people get hurt and even killed.

I remember when I was in middle school and we were skiing in P.E.. Few of my friends were and probably still are obsessed with horror movies, and they were talking about this movie. They actually told the whole plot, all twists, everything. I was fine with it, because I thought I would never watch this movie. But now, four years later, I watched this movie.

The first thing I noticed was the colours. Mostly the colours used were grey, white, black, brown... Neutral, earthy colours, except for when brighter more striking colours were used for certain effect. The use of colours in this movie was excellent, even though otherwise the cinematography was pretty average and typical.

I also pointed out the fact that the biological daughter Max was deaf. Her character didn't rely just on that fact, which is good. It's good to have disabled characters in movies for "no good reason", and it's even better to make their story not about being deaf. True, this movie was not about Max, but even if you look it from her point of view, it's not just about her being deaf. I like that. 

The orphan Esther has something in common with the whole movies. Neither of them is truly scary, just really, really disturbing. Esther's character is interesting, but not as interesting as many other villains in thriller movies. I think that might have something to do with how they revealed everything from her backstory, and she didn't have a good, interesting, unique motive. I think in the end they made her motive very cheaply, even though otherwise her story was very intriguing 

I first thought this was a horror movie, but apparently not. Well, typical style of horror movies was used a lot, but the plot and Esther are mostly from the thriller genre. Rarely the dialogue was like in horror movies, like I said about Poltergeist the other day. In horror movies the dialogue is relaxed and almost playful, when characters aren't talking about current events going on. But this movie was a very good thriller, I felt really charged during the movie.

Like I said before, I knew the whole plot. But did it ruin the movie? Actually it did not. The experience was still thrilling even though I knew all about Esther right away. I think this movie might actually require two viewings, if you don't know about Esther already, because when you watch it the second time, you have a different look on Esther since you know her motives, and what she is aiming for.

This movie was very intense, very disturbing, but all in all it wasn't a masterpiece. I had higher expectations, I think. Still, definitely worth seeing.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

7 / 10