I have come to expect one thing from horror movies; stupid characters. It's sort of a compromise. I suspend disbelief that anyone would really be as stupid as people in horror movies because if the people in horror movies where smart, there wouldn't be nearly enough horror.
This movie, however, starred a PAINFULLY stupid protagonist. It will seriously blow you away. You've most likely heard the proverbial "Don't go in there!" in a movie theater during a horror film. This movie was more like "Don't go into the creepy haunted mansion while making sure that you don't have any weapons and no one knows where you are".
I'll give you a few examples (in case you couldn't figure it out SPOILERS COME HERE). At one point in the movie, Henry (a mortician who encountered the evil scary ventriloquist lady during his childhood) finds his mentally disturbed wife trying to talk to the creepy ventriloquist lady's doll (which, he finds entirely reasonable to keep inside his house). He puts the doll "back where it belongs" and then continues to go about his business. He then hears what he thinks is his wife crying in a crawl space (for lack of a better term) that she likes to hang out in. He goes in to apologize, and unsurprisingly the door shuts behind him. Also unsurprisingly, this dude doesn't make it to the end of the movie. This scene had me screaming "BUT HE KNEW SHE WAS BAD!" Okay, in words his actions sound a bit more reasonable, but wait, there's more.
The movie begins with our hero and his new wife receiving a mysterious package that is merely dropped on their doorstep. They open it, creepy doll. Our hero walks out to get takeout. Of course it wouldn't be a good idea to talk to the police now that someone is leaving random dolls on his doorstep, oh yea, did I mention the package had no stamps or addresses on it? Couldn't be that maybe whoever left this random package here might come back, right? Our hero gets home to find a bunch of blood on the floor. His wife's voice beckons him into their room, where he finds her dead. The cops (actually cop) clearly think that our hero is the killer. The next day our hero returns to the house to pick up the creepy doll. After all, it's not like he could tell something creepy was going on by virtue of the fact that he heard his DEAD wife talking to him.
Let's keep going. At one point our hero is trudging his way through the creepy theater (more about the theater in the last paragraph). They both know something is going on, they have both realized (at least I hope they have) that the creepy ventriloquist lady intends to kill them. While investigating a scary noise, our hero hands his lantern to the cop, who has a shotgun. Now, this action was already dumb enough, the cop needs two hands to use the shotgun effectively. But the cop is even dumb enough to take the lamp with his right hand! So if they should suddenly get attacked they wouldn't have a prayer of getting a shot off.
All of this, however, is NOTHING compared to the horrendous stupidity that occurs near the end of the film. The cop shows up to arrest our hero, announcing that all the dolls have been dug up (by the way, creepy ventriloquist lady had 101 dolls, sounds like a Disney movie!) and accuses our hero of being responsible. Unsuccessfully he tries to arrest our hero, but then his stepmother walks in with a telephone, announcing he has a phone call.
Okay, prepare for this.
The caller is Henry (the mortician), who has a terrible connection, Henry announces that he has a way to prove our hero is innocent of the murder of his wife. Henry asks our hero to meet him at the abandoned theater that the creepy ventriloquist lady once performed in, immediately, at night. Apparently our hero concludes that this miracle evidence the mortician found to clear our hero's name can't be revealed to him in broad daylight at, I don't know, maybe Henry's FLIPPIN' HOUSE?!?!?! Seriously, what is this guy thinking? If the evidence is SO urgent that, for some reason, he has to be told about it TONIGHT, then how does he ever expect to keep it until HIS TRIAL? Remember, our hero should have learned early on that the creepy ventriloquist lady can mimic voices, she mimicked his wife's voice when he found her dead body.
Not only this, the theater sits at the opposite side of a creek from the rest of town. There was once a bridge, now one must take a boat (for some reason some person sees fit to leave a perfectly good boat for the mere purpose of crossing from one side of a creek to another. And the two boats that sit there, seemingly not tied to anything, never seem to drift away). Our hero is so dumb he doesn't figure out that Henry requires a boat to get to the theater too, and there are only two boats, both of which are on the opposite side of the creek from the theater.
The problem with the whole last 20 minutes of this movie is that it seems as though our hero wants to get killed. In fact the movie in general made me appreciate the intelligence of all the other horror movie characters I've ever seen.
That being said, this movie actually was entertaining. The scares were solid (mostly), and the stupidity of the characters actually added to the entertainment value. I don't know if I can say I got my money's worth, so I suggest you wait for the rental, but I would at least say it is worth watching.
This movie, however, starred a PAINFULLY stupid protagonist. It will seriously blow you away. You've most likely heard the proverbial "Don't go in there!" in a movie theater during a horror film. This movie was more like "Don't go into the creepy haunted mansion while making sure that you don't have any weapons and no one knows where you are".
I'll give you a few examples (in case you couldn't figure it out SPOILERS COME HERE). At one point in the movie, Henry (a mortician who encountered the evil scary ventriloquist lady during his childhood) finds his mentally disturbed wife trying to talk to the creepy ventriloquist lady's doll (which, he finds entirely reasonable to keep inside his house). He puts the doll "back where it belongs" and then continues to go about his business. He then hears what he thinks is his wife crying in a crawl space (for lack of a better term) that she likes to hang out in. He goes in to apologize, and unsurprisingly the door shuts behind him. Also unsurprisingly, this dude doesn't make it to the end of the movie. This scene had me screaming "BUT HE KNEW SHE WAS BAD!" Okay, in words his actions sound a bit more reasonable, but wait, there's more.
The movie begins with our hero and his new wife receiving a mysterious package that is merely dropped on their doorstep. They open it, creepy doll. Our hero walks out to get takeout. Of course it wouldn't be a good idea to talk to the police now that someone is leaving random dolls on his doorstep, oh yea, did I mention the package had no stamps or addresses on it? Couldn't be that maybe whoever left this random package here might come back, right? Our hero gets home to find a bunch of blood on the floor. His wife's voice beckons him into their room, where he finds her dead. The cops (actually cop) clearly think that our hero is the killer. The next day our hero returns to the house to pick up the creepy doll. After all, it's not like he could tell something creepy was going on by virtue of the fact that he heard his DEAD wife talking to him.
Let's keep going. At one point our hero is trudging his way through the creepy theater (more about the theater in the last paragraph). They both know something is going on, they have both realized (at least I hope they have) that the creepy ventriloquist lady intends to kill them. While investigating a scary noise, our hero hands his lantern to the cop, who has a shotgun. Now, this action was already dumb enough, the cop needs two hands to use the shotgun effectively. But the cop is even dumb enough to take the lamp with his right hand! So if they should suddenly get attacked they wouldn't have a prayer of getting a shot off.
All of this, however, is NOTHING compared to the horrendous stupidity that occurs near the end of the film. The cop shows up to arrest our hero, announcing that all the dolls have been dug up (by the way, creepy ventriloquist lady had 101 dolls, sounds like a Disney movie!) and accuses our hero of being responsible. Unsuccessfully he tries to arrest our hero, but then his stepmother walks in with a telephone, announcing he has a phone call.
Okay, prepare for this.
The caller is Henry (the mortician), who has a terrible connection, Henry announces that he has a way to prove our hero is innocent of the murder of his wife. Henry asks our hero to meet him at the abandoned theater that the creepy ventriloquist lady once performed in, immediately, at night. Apparently our hero concludes that this miracle evidence the mortician found to clear our hero's name can't be revealed to him in broad daylight at, I don't know, maybe Henry's FLIPPIN' HOUSE?!?!?! Seriously, what is this guy thinking? If the evidence is SO urgent that, for some reason, he has to be told about it TONIGHT, then how does he ever expect to keep it until HIS TRIAL? Remember, our hero should have learned early on that the creepy ventriloquist lady can mimic voices, she mimicked his wife's voice when he found her dead body.
Not only this, the theater sits at the opposite side of a creek from the rest of town. There was once a bridge, now one must take a boat (for some reason some person sees fit to leave a perfectly good boat for the mere purpose of crossing from one side of a creek to another. And the two boats that sit there, seemingly not tied to anything, never seem to drift away). Our hero is so dumb he doesn't figure out that Henry requires a boat to get to the theater too, and there are only two boats, both of which are on the opposite side of the creek from the theater.
The problem with the whole last 20 minutes of this movie is that it seems as though our hero wants to get killed. In fact the movie in general made me appreciate the intelligence of all the other horror movie characters I've ever seen.
That being said, this movie actually was entertaining. The scares were solid (mostly), and the stupidity of the characters actually added to the entertainment value. I don't know if I can say I got my money's worth, so I suggest you wait for the rental, but I would at least say it is worth watching.