The Vault

So apparently today everything has to be big, with lots of special effects, jump scares and an astronomical budget. Right? -Wrong!

This is how movies used to be done, sure it is a tad bit more ambiguous, resembles The Void a little, but I still say it succeeded! I had fun watching it, I liked the characters, the plot, the execution, I did not expect something out of the ordinary, thus I feel I received exactly what I wanted. A good little film, a nice add-on to my horror collection, I'll even recommend it for a late night run.

The Vault is a nicely crafted piece, there was room for improvement, for something bigger, surely enough, but it did not failed. Overall, a small success indeed!

Cheers!

This is better than the rating, at the time of writing, of 4.7. This has hair-on-end horror not the standard jump-scares, with a touch of gore and suspense to boot. Something about it reminded me of "The Usual Suspects" and "Assault on Precinct 13" and now I have said that you will see it too! Really only commenting as 4.7 seems waay too low. Hardly a deep movie but a good movie. As I have hinted it is derivative but nevertheless entertaining with a charismatic cast and camera-work, lighting and action worthy of classic Hollywood fare. I know people will knock this review simply for me saying this is what Hollywood does best but I think Cannes would like this, even.

When starting The Vault up I had an overwhelming feeling of deja-vu, I felt like I'd seen it before but not because of a lack of originality more that I watched the trailer months ago and it left a lasting impression on me.

Telling the story of a bank robbery that gets complicated when the robbers discover that the vault is haunted it's a neat little tale (In theory) with a fascinating highly original concept. I was so excited to see where this would go, what a brilliant idea I thought.

Sadly despite having a great concept they really didn't think it through and certainly had no endgame. The potential is squandered to a painful extent, what an absolute heartbreaking shame.

Starring James Franco and a host of oddly competent folk including the excellent Francesca Eastwood (Who looks alarmingly like Amanda Seyfried) the film manages to look good but offers little else.

The concept is wasted, the antagonists are lackluster and the protagonists are quite frankly non-existent!

I wanted to like The Vault, I simply couldn't. It's a demonstration on how to drop the ball.

The Good:

Cast deliver

Very interesting premise

The Bad:

Concept feels wasted

Stock screams

No protagonists

I had this one on my list to watch for a long time, but I let the low user reviews and ratings sway me. Finally last night we watched it. SO good. It is a very different kind of ghost story, but full of surprises and creepiness. There were some seriously creepy scenes and I know I jumped several times. The antagonists were just obnoxious enough that you were happy to see them have some challenges. The ghosts were scary and unexpected. If you are looking for a fun scare, give this a try. Loved it.

This film tells the story of a group of five bank robbers who aim to rob half a million dollars from the bank. The think they hit the jackpot when the assistant manager of the bank offers help to get them six million dollars from the mysterious underground vault.

"The Vault" is a very low budget film, and it really shows. That in itself is not a problem, if it had a good story and tight editing. Unfortunately, there is not much to fill the screen time, and the pacing is just really slow. It takes the robbers thirty minutes to get to the vault, and then another thirty minutes for things to get going. There are many implausible or illogical things happening in the film too. I find it implausible that there is only one man trying to open the vault, while the two women watch on CCTV. Could they not have helped with opening the vault? It is a low budget B film through and through. There will be fans who like this film, but it is not for me.