Image courtesy of United International Pictures.
Review by: Calvin.
WARNING: May contain spoiler.
The movie revolves around a middle aged Emily Jenkins played by Zellweger, whose occupation as a social worker requires her to sort cases dealing with mistreated and abused children in a family. From the very start of the movie, it is revealed that she has got her hands full since she already has 38 cases. Jenkins thinks she has experienced and knows every know-how about child care until she is met with her latest case, case 39. A mysterious case involving a troubled 10 year-old girl named Lilith Sullivan played by Jodelle Ferland. Everything seems as it is in the beginning of the movie, psychotic parents trying to murder their own child for being a nuisance, and social worker is there to save the innocent and put the ‘bad’ parents in psychological care/prison. Jenkins managed to save the little girl and prove the parent’s guilt despite the parent’s cover up attempts at the beginning. Therefore, with lots of kind intentions and good will, Jenkins decided to rescue her from child care centre and adopt Lily for her own until the right foster family comes along. This is the part when she slowly and gruesomely finds out that Lily isn’t all that innocent as she might have thought. Slowly, her colleagues and case victims became slaves to an invisible psychological mind force that plays with one’s deepest fears. Jenkins started to have hallucinations and finally approached Lily’s parents to ask for help. The beans were spilled and the only way to get rid of her is to kill her.
The most prominent aspect in this movie is of course the fright factor (and a teaspoon of psychological elements), but to say the least, there were many disappointing and pathetic attempts at scare tactics in the movie that involves loud sudden noises and head popping in to check on the character, for example people knocking on doors or windows after a long hauled silence to build up the tension, which is quite obvious if dragged too long. Besides the low fright factor scale, the computer graphics generated are poorly executed and see-through-able. Such in a scene (SPOILER ALERT!) where the supporting actor, Douglas J Ames, played by Bradley Cooper (Hangover) is ferociously attacked by his deepest fear that is wasp, seen to be produced from his ears, nose, mouth and even eyes which led him to twist his own neck out of fear, and it is also soon revealed that there was never any wasps involved (not one of the most original killing in film history). Other attempts of scaring the audience was when a burnt out Lily Sullivan’s mother was chasing Jenkins down the street in a 21st century zombie-like running down her prey accompanied with beastly growling sound effects, only to find out there was never a zombie-like mum chasing after terrified Jenkins. Which would lead me to another aspect of the movie. The acting.
I’m quite sorry to say, but it was a disappointing effort from both actresses. Jodelle seemed too robotic in this film, perhaps the characteristics of ‘Innocence’ and ‘Frightful’ is far too much for her to comprehend, ending up frying her acting chip. I do realize that most the films she’s acted in has her portraying a horror and demon-like child such as Silent Hill and heavy gothic make-up in Kingdom Hospital, but her performance in those film and series far outdo this film. In this film, the audience can easily get confused and annoyed with her sudden smile after her heavy footsteps and deep distorted voice. On the other hand, Zellweger had to undergone a massive character personality change throughout the film, from one point of the movie, she is a stern social worker, to a caring and kind mother, and then to a terrified and mentally disturbed victim, and finally to a ‘Tomb Raider – Angelina Jolie’ character defying the monstrosity. The only intelligent bit is Jodelle’s character, named after the Lilith demon known throughout many mythologies.
In a nutshell, the film isn’t much of a disappointment as I didn’t have high expectations from the start. If I had to rate the movie, I’d give it a 2 out of 5. Reason being of poor execution of concept and overly-used plot (child horror) resulting in a very predictable plot. I wouldn’t pay much money to go watch it, but if you do enjoy cheap thrills and scare tactics (and aren’t afraid of wasps), then this film might satisfy some of your ‘not-so-funny’ bones. A better recommendation of psychological thriller/horror would be ‘The Orphan’, ‘The Orphanage’, ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, or ‘The Devil’s Advocate’.
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