The Vault

Saw this recently on a pirated DVD. The trailer showing a heist with horror elements along with Franco was sufficient to buy the DVD. As one character keeps on asking no lies, short answers. Well, i will tell the truth n in short. Bad film. Franco cheated the audiences. The Vault tried to be a mix n mash genre but it failed. There wasn't any tension n action. It is not at all scary or graphic n not action-heavy. The killings weren't that scary or tension filled. The scenes with the "stuff" were shot in dark n the editing was horrendous. In one scene the brother is sitting when the shooting happens n suddenly he is seen cutting the pipe. Ther r numerous badly edited scenes. Non scary scenes which r just there to fill up. The acting was awful by the two leading ladies. Clint Eastwood must b really upset. There was no character development n the twist was kinda predictable. Maybe director Dan Bush's intention was to create a good blend of heist n horror. His Signal is one of my favorite horror film.

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.

I think anything under a 5 is unfair as it's watchable. The acting is pretty decent the story is fine, but ultimately it's drags on too long for it's gimmick. It's not particularly interesting and you can guess the "twist" about 5 minutes into the movie. In fact if were being honest they literally tell you whats going to happen. It's weird that they do that. I'm not kidding. You'll see it and groan. The idea is intriguing enough that you A. hope that they would be stupid enough to give the plot and thats its a red herring or B. Just go with it and enjoy it for what it is. The movie doesn't look cheap so that's a plus. I tried to watch some other low rent horror just before this called berkshire county. The cinematography in the first 5 minutes was so bad and lazy I couldn't be bothered to battle through it. This looks solid and they have 3 or 4 journeyman actors holding this up around the edges. Im like 90 percent I've seen an extremely similar concept on twilight zone or tales from the crypt. However in those cases it was a tight 40-45 minute story. This film is..tiresome. So thats my advise. If you can handle a low-medium rent episode of TFTC stretched out maybe 30 minutes too long this is fine. I didn't hate it, but I got bored more than a few times and checked apps on my phone during it.

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.

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!