Djinn

I have been keenly awaiting the release of this film for a while now mainly as the film has been shot & takes place in U.A.E (where I reside) & is based around the legends of Jazeerat Al Hamra in Ras Al Khaimah! To add to the excitement, Tobe Hooper, the man behind Poltergeist & Texas Chain Saw series is directing this film. Unfortunately Djinn kinda disappointed me; the predictable plot, excessive use of not very good CGI & cliché jump scares was kind of fail. Tobe Hooper manages to create an intense environment & tries to build up the predictable suspense while throwing in some random sequences but ends up rushing into climax without any acknowledgement of what was actually happening! The actors did a fine job in certain sequences. Nevertheless given the budget & a fresh attempt on an almost unused supernatural anomaly, Djinn is not a terrible film, but could have been better though!

Simply put, this movie was directed by a master of horror. And though everyone is entitled to failures, I feel like this one didn't have to be. This could've been a groundbreaking film for Hooper. Sadly it was the opposite. But not by the fault of Hooper. We can't possibly know what his true vision was, because what we got was a very salient example of the damage a room of executives can cause. Hooper and Djinn never stood a chance.

I saw Djinn, the 1st Horror thriller shot in UAE. and featuring Lebanese , Egyptian and Emiraty and Saudi actors.

Beside the scenes of classic "jumpy" feelin, the acting is very bad. Chemistry between the actors is practically inexistent, the story is revealed in the 1st scene. and there is no build up. I have to say that the Saudi Actress, Aiysha Hart who did a great job! Some effects are good, but borrowed from other movies, such as "scene of birds bumping into windows...or the crawling "Um Al dwais" weak cinematography. Dubai has much better scenes than shown. We need to compare the movie to international standards, especially with the amount of money spent on it. and the full access to all needed materials and actors. and hence why the movie rating is 3, in my opinion.

The only reason I give it 4 is because I like both Aiysha Hart and Razane Jammal. Both did the best they could with a poor script and shoddy directing. As for 'horror'?, I didn't see any. Not even remotely. Just a lot of disjointed scenes, no atmosphere, no chemistry, nothing to talk about. I enjoyed Aiysha Hart in her scenes, speaking Arabic; those were high points of the film for me. poor Razane looked at sea most of the time. Shame. Could have been a much better film with more effort from the director, imagination and maybe even a bigger budget...? Most of the story was predictable. There was little emotional content even around the theme of the dead baby. There was no atmosphere to connect the so called 'horror' to any emotional response by the actors. All very disconnected.Worth watching for the Arabic language scenes.

The movie has a nice folklore traditional Emirati story , and depends on some of the beliefs of Islam regarding the realm of Jin (There is no D in Jin) . It is directed by Tobe Hooper which I believe is the only reason that you might consider watching this. The most horrible thing about this movie is the cast , some are horribly unwatchable and there is no chemistry whatsoever between them. The dialects and accents are just too silly to mix together in members of the same family. The transition from speaking Arabic to speaking English is just uneasy to hear. The movies starts okay then the plot just plateaus for a veryyyyy long time until you are hit with the stupid ending. Bottom line is, if you don't speak Arabic I do not recommend watching this , and if you do speak Arabic I also do not recommend you to watch it.