The Banshee Chapter (2013) Directed by Blair Erickson

Meh, meh, meh, very meh. On second thought; no, this really isn't a good movie at all.

This isn't ever a tense mystery or a good creepy horror movie. I don't even know how to describe this movie. Sure, that means that it's also an original one but I wish that would mean that this was being a decent movie as well. I just don't really know or understand what the film-makers were trying to achieve.

You really should be warned; this isn't really a horror movie. It has some (lame) jump scares but other than that, it's lacking both the atmosphere and story to work out as a true and successful horror flick. Instead of being creepy or tense it's mostly just being a mysterious one. It however only is a mysterious movie because of the simple fact that it isn't really explaining anything. It deliberately keeps things in the dark for as long- and as much as possible, which in my opinion is always a sign of some 'lazy' writing and film-making. It can work, as long as things are interesting and engaging enough to watch but this movie however just didn't grab me.

It's really due to that way how the movie is being told. For one; it's a short movie but it still manages to feel like a (too) long one because lots of the scene in it feel too stretched out. Moments go on unnecessarily long and even worse than that; some moments feel absolutely pointless. The story, even though it's a fairly simplistic and straightforward one, is quite hard to follow at times which, again, is mostly due to the fact that it isn't always explaining- or setting things up properly and effectively enough. I for instance still don't understand why the Katia Winter's character HAD to team up with the Ted Levine character. Seems to me that he only was holding her back and the Katia Winter's character made most- if not all of the discoveries on her own anyway.

Thing that also bothered me was how this movie felt and looked like a found footage movie, only it's not a found footage movie at all! The style of filming was too distracting and instead of making you feel more involved with things, it makes you feel more detached from the movie.

Guess that the movie is going for a more psychological horror approach but the problem is that the movie really isn't ever clever or effective enough with anything for it to work out. It's not the worst thing I have ever seen but it still remains a below average- and ultimately also very forgettable genre attempt.

5/10

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