Emelie

By reading the premise for this film I'm sure you know that this isn't going to be some edge of your seat sophisticated thriller, it is a straightforward (mostly predictable horror/thriller that entertains enough but fails to accomplish much).

The flick started interesting enough, had me intrigued right off the bat, however from there it just kind of slows down and starts following the exact same path that many other similar movies have. As the babysitter's intentions become clear the movie got kind of bland, I just didn't really care about most of the stuff that was going on. The film managed to hold my interest enough to stop from turning the movie off but it failed to create any real tension/suspense.

It wasn't all bad, I thought the cast did a really good job, especially the child actors who all gave very realistic performances and succeeded at not really being annoying or obnoxious at all. There were a few memorable scenes as well, one that was really unintentionally funny in my opinion.

Overall this wasn't a bad movie, it did it's job of killing 1 hour & 20 minutes. It's just the whole thing has a very bland and familiar atmosphere that prevents it from being anything more than just another lower budget horror movie.

5/10

Emelie's impact falls short of what was intended for it. While disturbing, it never goes full force and almost borders on tame sometimes. The motivation seemed unnecessary to me and the film lost intensity the longer it went on. Also- I'm being picky at this point!- the transitions really bugged me. But, again, it was okay.

'Emelie' is one of those films that is a lot more fun if you just turn your brain off and don't think about it too much. Unfortunately for me I don't like to do that. It you stop and think about the whole story for a second you'll quickly realise none of it makes a whole lot of sense. Without spoiling any character's motives, I'll just say that there isn't a lot of common sense or reasoning going on, most of which is lacking in order to stretch this movie out to an already short 80 minute run time. The writing in thrillers is rarely perfect, but there has to be a limit to the amount of absurdity and foolishness you can accept.

It's not all bad though. Sarah Bolger in the lead role did a fantastic job. She had an eerie creepiness about her character, while always keeping some charisma in the mix. The children also did a very good job, giving performances that were above average. Often in these types of movies the kids become annoying very quickly and ruin the experience, but that was never the case here. There was some potential behind all this that I think has been squandered with some sloppy writing in parts. Director Michael Thelin in his first film did a fine job with what he had to work with and can keep his head up. Tweak the script here and there and you'd have yourself a very fine thriller.

A well-filmed psychological thriller with horror elements interests the first two-thirds of the timing, and then slides into something standard and seen many, many times. Of the actors, only Sarah Bolger is worth noting. Children play rather themselves and are not particularly remembered. In general, a strong middle peasant. View and put on the shelf.

I didn't think there was anything more that could be done with the evil babysitter genre and, on reflection, I was probably right. On the other hand there were two or three clever scenes I've not seen before but nothing that had me gripping the edge of my seat. The saddest part of the movie was the sequel-begging ending. I'm sorry, but even though cast and crew gave of their best there is nothing here I want to see again. If, like me, you downloaded this for nothing, you might be entertained late-night after a few drinks but I wouldn't pay to see it and I will certainly not be awaiting the next instalment. Plus points are that the menacing moments were exactly that - menacing rather than explicit - but the whole thing has TV movie/direct-to-DVD written all over it.