January horror is back, baby!
The movie thinks it's "It Follows" but is actually "The Curse of La Larona"!
Okay, that was mean.
So, not quite. This isn't a never ending trainwreck or torrent of trash like we usually can come to relish and treasure in these cold opening months.
But the movie is more competently made, staid, steady work with no real tension or atmosphere, hitting the usual beats and things you've come to expect from this kind of movie (right down to a visit to an elderly woman who tells them how the plot works, though thankfully she is neither magic nor black), wearing a lot of influences on its sleeve:
The frequent water shots and imagery of water really wants to be "It Follows" or "Dark Water", the army of swimming pool ghosts (Jesus, that concept is such a "King at his most coke-fuelled 80s output") are "Insidious" (fitting due to Wan being producer), its father-son dynamic is trying to be recent Blumhouse movies and, oddly, "Pet Sematary" in many regards, the possession-based finale is trying to be "Hereditary" or "The Babadook" (right down to the children having to save the day), the aforementioned old woman is very much "The Ring"
(Any excuse to post Kyoko Koizumi)
The film relies on jump scares of the more 2000s kind, but they did their job for the young women in front of me at the cinema, and is actually better off when it is focusing on the child's eye view of the pool, and the darkest murkiest depths of it, making you think that there is something within it. The quickest way to terrify me (well, second fastest: "It Follows" being the first. Watch that fucking movie) is to show me deep, deep water. Even a pool will do. The longer shots, the quieter moments, they can draw you in. Contrasting them with the pouring of water, the long aerial shots, the murkiness of the depths: the imagery comes together.
But the atmosphere is never truly there.
Honestly, it would have worked super well as an 80s/90s throwback of a haunted monster in the pool.
Fun side note: the opening is set in 1992, as a throwback, and you can expect to see a lot more of those settings now, they'll be the new "80s" for TV and movies.
It has, however, more ambitions than many of this era, and I respect that. I don't make the "Pet Sematary" (the remake) comparisons lightly: the acting is good across the board, and the characters are likeable if not super lovable, and I liked the healing angle. They have a good planting and payoff of a batting signal, and the arc and message of it are a man turning away from the past and his career focus and moving that focus to his family and their needs. That kind of works, but feels rushed.
It's fine.
It isn't "Fantasy Island".
Still, the soundtrack by Mark Korven (who did "Cube" and "The Black Phone") is good. I wish director and writer Bryce McGuire all the best, honestly he has potential.
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