The tone is set here within the opening camera track, a slow pan across an attic room with elaborate plans pinned to the wall and an epic diorama style model house. As the camera closes in and locks into one rooms of the house, there’s a knock at the door an Gabriel Byrne walks in. This is gonna be good. Add Toni Collette and a clearly offbeat family attending a funeral and things are set to get pretty strange. I’m gonna cut to the chase, I loved this... sort of. Creepy characters, completely relatable moving through scenes of their lives that make your blood run cold and hold your hands to your head in moments of unfathomable discomfort. The supernatural occurrences would in other less considered films annoy me, but here their little subtle interventions work beautifully (to begin with), heightening the tensions and the pain of tragic loss. Byrne is the anchor, the normal in the descending chaos. His togetherness though allows Collette free reign to let loose, she’s ferociously brilliant. Yes there are a few tropes and you could say it follows some familiar thriller territory, but for much of the film it’s fun. Sadly the final act, perhaps predictably just crosses the line and it goes from interesting supernatural thriller to surreal twoddle. Bloody shame really as it was doing so well. Still, there’s some entertaining stuff here and if you can see your way to forgiving the last half hour, it really is quite a good watch.
6(66)/10
