Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
YOU know what I hate? When there are big glaring holes with scenes missing during a movie! Granted, it's not too bad if it's the director or scriptwriter's fault, but if it's the censors, we have a problem.
I haven't seen the first film, so I was jumping in at the deep end with this one. You don't have to have seen the first part to enjoy this film ... you do need to be brain-dead and void of all intelligence, but you definitely don't need to have seen the first movie!
So, what's this film about? It's a classic tale of haunted house meets loving family - with a few loud noises and cheap tricks thrown in for good measure.
The movie begins with the birth of a baby - a kid called Hunter to be exact - and his loving family. From the moment Hunter is born, his doting family record every moment of their lives with a camcorder.
One day, the family comes home to discover their house has been completely ransacked, but strangely, nothing has been stolen and Hunter's room has been left untouched. This event prompts the family to install security cameras all over the house. Each night the audience gets to see what's happening on the cameras and most of the movie is shot in this fashion (which is a good thing because there's only so much hand-held camera action I can take).
The constant cycling through the security camera shots each night is both boring and unnerving at the same time. You know eventually you'll see something happen in one of the shots when the cycle starts - and you get to a point where you're feeling a bit bored ... but relieved that nothing happened.
After the cameras have been installed, nothing really happens for a while, in fact, I actually began to lose interest in when the ghosts would turn up, but eventually (after much anticipation) some spooky stuff starts to happen. Doors slam by themselves, pans fall in the kitchen for no reason and cupboard doors open all on their own ... and baby Hunter is eerily dragged from one end of his crib to the other by an unseen entity.
The family begins to question what's going on and trying to find a rational explanation for all the 'paranormal activity' surrounding them. The father is a skeptic, the mother is terrified, the teenage daughter thinks the situation is 'cool' (at first anyway), the maid is convinced there is an evil spirit and even the dog is acting up by barking into thin air for no reason.
All-in-all the film itself wasn't too bad, and even provided a few moments that genuinely made me jump. But, the reason I hated this film so much wasn't the low budget, the bad acting, the tacky dialogue, the shakey hand-held camera or even the ridiculous plot ... it was the sloppy and blatant cuts that appear to have been made to make this film 'Bahrain friendly'.
As I mentioned, the film is a low-budget production and is shot mainly on the security cameras installed in the 'haunted' house (incidentally, this is how I noticed the huge chunks that have been cut from the film). Since the cameras are all mounted to fixed locations, it's pretty clear when a scene has been sliced and a character magically moves from one end of the room to another. Also, there is a clock in the bottom right hand side of the screen, making it particularly easy to notice that a cut has been made and 38 seconds of the film have suddenly been 'misplaced'.
Cutting a film to make it appropriate for Bahrain is fine ... providing the audience isn't left wondering what happened. The only scary thing about this movie was how badly it's been edited!
Showing in Cineco, Seef I, and Saar Cineplex
