Curse of the Witching Tree

This was my second failure to bring home a good scary movie for family movie night. So much cliché, from disrespectful children, to potato sacks

Acting was terrible, story was tired, and did I mention that the acting was terrible? Was no research done to try and bolster the attempts to make any of this more believable, was he in a coma, or taking a nap?

The scariest part of this movie, was the fact that at the advertised 90 minute mark it didn't end! It went on for another 3 minutes. Very disappointed, after reading some lengthy reviews that really promoted this as a significant indie shocker. At least I had enough time to do some dishes and laundry.

Unhappy family moves into an old house while the father lies comatose in hospital. But the house is cursed by the spirit of a wronged mother.

OK, it's low budget but ... sigh. Doesn't anyone in Britain watch indie-American or French horror? Does everything have to be heritage ghostery, or Up Yours! soap opera?

The story does get its spooks on at about 40 mins, with an effective inter-cut of brother/sister/father, and the dialogue thins out as the director finally uses the camera. I won't mention what went before. Couple of badly timed jump scares - the first is literal, the second imitates a scene in Jessabelle.

It's hard on actors when they're presented with a mess, so I can't judge how good they are - except Eva the blind visionary was convincing: she had timing, and the visual of candle flames for eyes was a good touch. Actors are there to act, not overact.

Sad to be harsh, but the writing, direction and editing caused a sharp intake of breath. Use of music was just cheese - see the prologue for evidence. Pfff.

Keep it simple: ditch half the dialogue, a third of the characters, and a quarter of the runtime. Then carve out a clear story through sound and editing.

This was one of the worse films I have ever watched. The acting was truly terrible. I had heard Danielle Lineker boasting about being in the film as she classes herself as an actress. Well.... a 1 minute scene and even that was awful. Pouting and trying to impress. Needs to stick to spending her husbands money. My daughter & her boyfriend also watched it with me and we laughed at how terrible all the actors were in this film. it was definitely a very low budget film, with actors who had never been heard of, and hopefully will never be seen again. The story was just so dross in all respects. I have never seen blind people with black strips of material covering their eye's. Surely could get sun glasses? And the children walking around like scarecrows with sacks covering their heads...What was all that about?

The video quality will be a good indictator - you'll be able to tell that this is not a big budget movie. And maybe something you do not want to watch anyway. That will be up to you. Predictable and a few other flaws - quite a few to be honest. This still might be something for the hardcore horror fan out there.

Not easy to watch and/or follow this tries to make the best of a story that easy to follow if you were to put it nicely. Some shock effects work, there is a bit of nudity and the ending is not half as bad as I expected it to be. Still you can use your time better and do something more productive with it - I'm certain about that.

This is by far the worst film I have seen in many a year. The acting is more wooden than the tree in the title, the casting is shocking (The son has a posh Southern accent and the daughter a northern accent, plus the Mother must of been about 4 when she had the daughter)and even the sound is something you expect from a home movie you'd see on You've Been Framed. The camera-work is very poor too and over uses different angles and cuts away without need too may times.

Somebody should of been honest with the director at it's first screening and told him not to release this as it will bound to haunt him (more than this film haunted me anyway) in years to come if he really wants a career in film making.

Let my one good deed for 2015 be to warn everybody not to watch this.

I actually created this profile to post this review, YES... It is that bad!