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After reading that this movie was being made I thought the worst....how many times have we seen an "A" list star lower themselves to the level of cheap, made for TV quality horror films which just seem to spend all of their budget paying for said star power & not actually being able to spring for some quality script or effects...well; let me introduce you to "The New Daughter".

Firstly I would say that the money spent on getting a top quality actor such as Kevin Costner was well spent...he grounded this movie with his laconic, home town American drawl & really pulled me into the emotional heart of this film. The class of Costner's performance was exhibited no more finely than in the scenes where he was desperately searching for answers to his fears...his acting critics, who have in the past accused him of being "wooden" (& much worse) should see this film & re-evaluate their opinions of this fine actor.

The children were also good & it was wonderful to see the great James Gammon in a quirky & pivotal supporting role.

Usually in this kind of film, the "bad guy" (for want of a better term) tends to end up some lame, crappy alien or a figment of the characters imagination & the ending lets down a strong set up & middle section. In "The New daughter" however, the screenplay is strong & quality right up to the very final few seconds which had me sitting back in my chair saying out loud..."NO WAY!"

I think Costner fans will rejoice at seeing this timeless American performer once again showing us the kind of less is better charisma the likes of which we haven't seen since the halcyon days of Steve McQueen & Paul Newman & the Costner detractors should swallow their pride & give him a chance...he may just surprise you.

7 out of 10.

I came across this movie on YouTube free streaming movies. As most often is the case "free" movies aren't particularly good.

Kevin Costner is writer John James, after a recent divorce moves to a rural home in South Carolina with his young son and his pubescent daughter. There is a strange large mound behind the house near the edge of the woods.

Soon his daughter starts acting and dressing strangely, ultimately it is tied something going on in the mound that she visits at night, coming home muddy.

The movie is moderately interesting, Costner is in good form playing the type of character he has often played. The ending is pretty strange, I can't honestly say exactly what happened to his daughter.

It can be an interesting diversion if you don't have anything else to watch.

Up to a certain point in The New Daughter, I was reminded of Dragonfly. Both are low budget Costner films about a man dealing with a family loss which has a haunting outcome. It has been a while since I saw Dragonfly. Nobody thought it was any good, but it is way better than this film. To start with the obvious, The New Daughter represents what may be Costner's most lazy performance. It seems he has no interest in the story whatsoever. After a while the Dragonfly connection starts to fade away, and the movie turns into something else, something worse unfortunately. The New Daughter is torpid, and is bogged down by too much content, and not enough suspense or intelligent dialogue.

If I am gonna give the film any credit, it would be for photography. This is a gorgeously shot film, where the nights are cold, eerie and evocative, and the safety of home is warm, glowing and golden. The best shot in the film is the last one, which barely makes up for the utter stupidity of the ending. There is much left to explain, but in the end, I don't really care.

The New Daughter, is a spooky story, which is occasionally interesting but is less so than it is sloppily executed, badly acted, and not worth your money.

The New Daughter is an odd one, a creepy Kevin Costner vehicle that almost seems like an M. Night Shyamalan idea that didn't quite take flight from the drawing board. Nevertheless it's a good enough time at the movies, and there's genuinely skin crawling moments too. Costner, in solemn mode, plays a father who relocates to South Carolina with his kids. As if an obligatory adjustment period isn't bad enough, soon his teenage daughter (Pan's Labyrinth's Ivana Baquero, skillful but an odd choice to play all American white boy Kevin's daughter) starts acting strange, and I mean Stranger than your usual garden variety brand of pubescent restlessness. There's something out there in those rural woods, something that's drawing the girl's attention and slowly start possessing her. Father Costner is creeped out and desperate, seeking help from anyone he can, including a professor of far flung urban legend mythology (Noah Taylor), the creepy previous owner of his new home (screen legend James Gammon in his last living film role) and his kid's foxy local schoolteacher (Samantha Mathis). It's a spooky enough little flick, albeit cobbled together from several other better movies. There's creature effects later on that score some points, and atmospheric cinematography, but ultimately it's average, middle ground material.

As this movie opens, it seems to be literally riddled with clichés. A recent divorced father (Kevin Costner) decides to move with his two children into a creepy old house in the country, where they find what appears to be an old Indian burial ground. That really didn't seem to require much thought, did it. I was disappointed; somehow I was expecting something just a little more imaginative; a bit more out of the ordinary. I do have to give credit to the writers , though. After that extremely cliché opening, they manage to introduce a pretty well crafted story that rises above those clichés and that creates some suspense in the viewer.

Costner was the movie's greatest strength. He brought a well known presence to this movie and he played the part of the increasingly confused and concerned father quite well. Happily (from my point of view) the movie avoided going for yet another cliché - although there was the opportunity, there was no romance introduced for Costner. For the most part, the focus of the story remained pretty much on his strained relationship with his daughter and his increasing concern for her well being. The kids in this movie (Ivana Baquero and Gattlin Griffith) weren't amazing, but they also didn't detract from the story the way some child actors can. They were believable enough.

Director Luiso Berdejo (who has very little experience as a director) did a decent job using the setting to good advantage, and he created a realistic atmosphere of suspense, slowly rising to fear. There were a couple of things I found awkward in the movie. The introduction of the university professor and his TA, for example. They served little purpose except to give an explanation of what might have been happening with the burial mound. Perhaps there could have been a better way of unravelling the mystery than the introduction of a couple of otherwise unimportant and unnecessary characters. Also, although I fully understand the use of the analogy, the ant farm really wasn't required. I would have understood the movie even without it, and somehow it cheapened this a bit; it's the sort of plot device you expect to see in a made for TV movie.

This isn't bad. It's not one of the great horror movies of all time, but it isn't bad. (6/10)