Nails

Nails is an Irish horror that rather took me by surprise. Revolutionary? Hardly, but certainly enjoyable.

It tells the story of a woman who after getting hit by a car finds herself partially paralyzed in a hospital bed. Miserable and alone she begins to question if she's truly alone or if a supernatural entity really is stalking her.

Nails hardly brings new stuff to the table and you'll have seen the majority of it before but thankfully it's done better than most and manages to deliver on both quality and scares.

Furthermore why it took me by surprise is that I generally tend not to like British or Irish cinema, they have the habit of following formulas even more generic than Hollywood (And that's saying something).

The film manages to build an atmosphere, a great claustrophobic setting and an interesting background for our antagonist. The setting is also excellent, though it perhaps could have been explored a tad more.

Starring Ross Noble who many will know as a stand up comedian and Stitches in the movie of the same name, Nails is an enjoyable effort in a highly saturated genre.

The Good:

Great antagonist

Quite well constructed

The Bad:

Some moments of sheer stupidity

Some questionable cgi

Saw 'Nails', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to reviewing it.

Unfortunately, despite not reading any reviews purposefully before watching, am going to have to agree that 'Nails' isn't too good, though not terrible. A film that started off good, but ran out of steam very quickly and rapidly got worse by a second half that makes one not want to keep watching. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to give 'Nails', so gave it a fair chance.

'Ghost Nails' best assets were the first fifteen-twenty minutes, starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected, and the music, which not the most memorable in the world, didn't detract from the atmosphere.

The setting is effectively spooky and the acting was better than average (apart from Ross Noble, who was annoying), Shauna MacDonald being quite good.

However, so much brings 'Nails' down. The direction is so phoned in and pedestrian, one gets the sense that the director showed no interest in the film at all. Would have liked more chemistry between the actors, which can be put down to directing, tending to have interactions that are both static and awkward, and writing, which really doesn't flow, issues.

Where 'Nails' most underwhelms is the writing and story. The far too exposition-heavy writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, very confused as a result of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very limp pace after the first fifteen minutes and gets slower and slower until an interminably dragged out second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding, too many things that don't make sense or under-explained and tiresome repetition. The characters are nowhere near interesting enough, though MacDonald's character is reasonably likeable, and the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down. The villain's especially.

For a film billed as a horror, there is very little interesting and nothing remotely scary. They are too few and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the dull pacing and obvious sound effects cheapening them significantly. 'Nails' doesn't engage let alone thrill, the film started off very well but feels wasted by how quickly everything runs out of steam. The ending is an anti-climactic head-scratcher, like the script it feels incomplete and making sense of it was extremely difficult.

Overall, mediocre but with good points that stop it from being worse. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I remember this being far more scarier than it is when this was on netflix a few years ago, now it just seems... a little odd? It's okay though, the first few scares got me a bit and the plot isn't that great nor characters but again, it's okay. A little questionable at times and not in a good way however. Also, I didn't remember it being an Irish sorta film so that was a surprise when I rewatched, aha.

There were aspects of this movie that were quite interesting, and the movie definitely had potential. But writers Tom Abrams and Dennis Bartok never really seemed to utilize the potential that was there, or really bring out to a satisfactory climax what they built up.

For a ghost or haunting movie then "Nails" just wasn't outstanding, and you might actually say it was generic.

The acting from Shauna Macdonald was what held the movie afloat and made it watchable.

There were no scares throughout the movie, which worked very much against the enjoyment of the movie. And the movie was clearly suffering from the fact that there was nothing scary there.

The special effects were actually alright, and that did of course add something to the movie as well. Special effects of proper quality is always a good thing for a horror movie, so that worked well in favor of the movie.

If you enjoy a good ghost movie, then there are some better choices readily available.

A woman is confined to her bed in a rather creepy hospital. It is not long before things start going bump in the night. The harder she tries to convince her family something is going on the crazier she looks.

The leading lady is very good, as is production and script.

The hospital has a sinister air about it and there are a few scares that worked quite well and there are enough outside drama to keep the bedside story from going stale.

Unfortunately this movie suffers from the same ailment that effect the majority of horror movies. It just runs out of steam.

After an hour of being terrified of the bogey man, when he finally shows up he is very underwhelming. The inevitable end sequence is as dull as it is predictable.

I had to push through to make it to the end credits and it really wasn't worth it.