You Should Have Left

I'm pretty sure the people giving this such a low rating were expecting this to be another dime store horror, which it isn't. This is a slow burn psychological thriller with some horror aspects. There are some mild jump scares but this is more like if M. Knight Shyamalan wrote Groundhog Day and set it in the Amityville House minus the devil. It wasn't prefect, but it wasn't bad either. Great performances and beautiful scenery. I'd watch it again to see what I missed the first time.

Warning - it's not a horror film, more of a drama n mystery but tediously prolix.

David Koepp as a writer is phenomenal but as a director he is lazy and he proved it once again with this film. The film gets tedious after a while n apart from the star cast (Kevin Bacon) n the lovely locations, it has nothing good. There is unnecessary hide n seek inside the house. There is no tension but monotonous nightmares. The end was predictable for me. Generous with a 6 cos of Bacon n the nice locations.

Some moron has put up the synopsis of Secret Window regarding a writer moving in a secluded cabin to overcome writer's block.

There is a little problem here. There is written that "A screenwriter travels to a remote house in Wales with his family so that he can write the sequel to his big hit film, but he begins to regret his decision after suffering from a severe case of writer's block. " This is probably from another movie, because he is not a writer. He is an ex-banker and there is no writer's block, of course... But the film is medium and Kevin Bacon is great !

The acting was meh, the writing was meh, but I loved loved loved the camera work. Straight lines/angles on screen and focused reflections and stark depth of field stuff, all relating to the movies story now that I think back on it. Simple yet impressive light effects.

I loved Stir of Echoes so I wanted to give this one a try, and this one kind of emulates that same "what's actually going on here?" theme that most psychological thriller's seem to have. While this movie didn't have great story pacing as Stir of Echoes did, it still held my attention fairly well. It got a bit confusing late in the 3rd act but the very ending cleared it up enough. Confusing to the point of almost hating the movie lol! But the last few lines worked well and made me go, "Ohhhhhh, that's what it meant..." so it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

ALSO - Those are some major red flags for an AirBnB when multiple townsfolk are raising their eyebrows at you staying there, right?!

I'd recommend it if you liked Stir of Echoes and enjoy Kevin Bacon, and if you like good camera work. Honestly the cinematography saved it for me.

6/10

Thought I would add a quick review as there is a lot of negativity around this film. I'm suggesting it's a classic but it's fine as it is. Kevin Bacon is good as ever and it's a well put together story I'd probably a bit obvious. It's plenty creepy enough and at 90 minutes worth a watch in my opinion.