The plot tells about a single mother living with her son in a standard house for such films - a two-storey house, with many suspiciously moving doors, large and gloomy cabinets and, of course, with a dark cellar, where according to the canons of the genre, another malicious bug will hide. By the way, this by the name of Babaduk appeared quite original - after reading a children's book accidentally found. But she acts as the most ordinary demonic entity from the average horror movie. What causes hopeless boredom, which is very bad for a film made to scare.
The characters are average Americans. That is, not outstanding, gray, boring people. At first, I wanted to believe that what happened to them would make them open up, give something original, but no. As well as the main monster, they behave according to the standard rules of a horror movie - carelessly do not close the doors, go down to dark basements and let demons in. A mother does not have a single character trait, a strange habit, or any small irregularity in appearance, behavior, or manner of speaking that makes her any interesting character. It is like an empty template of the hero, who forgot to paint, and therefore he remained a gray plane in the form of a person. The son is a little more interesting. He does not act like a naive horror character who denies the presence of a monster to the last. On the contrary, he is determined to prepare for his arrival and is struggling to resist him. He even has a hint of an unusual character - his interest in clumsy but effective firing mechanisms. And somewhere in the middle of the movie, it's getting some interest. However, by the end of his personality disappears somewhere, and he too turns into an empty template.
The visual performance of the film is pleased that it is not shot in the now popular style of pseudo-documentaryism, which in my opinion causes an association with something cheap and passable. And that's the only thing that can please. In everything else, the visual to follow the characters is gray, devoid of its own style, adjusted to the standards of the genre. Even the main monster, whose name the film is called, looks like a ridiculous doll from some exotic carnival.
The saddest thing is that such a gray and boring horror film is no exception among the films of its genre. Numerous “Paranormal phenomena” and the like, childishly naive poltergeists straight from hell, obsessed and other Catholic horror stories significantly lowered the bar of quality. And therefore, the slightest deviation from the rolled track, insignificant originality in the reasons for the appearance of the monster or the way to get rid of it can knock out for the film the praise of critics and places in the lists.
2 out of 10
Original