Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Sanjeev Waters A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Phillip Holtzman I really enjoyed this movie, but I wish Russell Tovey had a bigger role in it. The main character, Ben, is a selfish man, more afraid of losing his identity than losing his family. The side character, Jack, is a damaged war hero, who already lost his family. Had the movie ended differently, with Jack as the wild card, I would have rated this movie higher. Cliché maybe, but this movie needed a grabber ending. At any rate, forget the comparisons, this movie is very entertaining.

umlaut_ampersand Watched this at last year's London Film Festival and was excited by a write-up that suggested elements of The Shining, The Others, maybe even Don't Look Now. Would have been particularly enjoyable to see a good British horror film and the cast and stills looked promising. Sadly, it's a terrible film. Think of a horror film cliché and you'll find it here. The acting is awful throughout (from the adults anyway, the boy in it was very good) and the dialogue pedestrian. Overall, the script is remarkably bad - no spoilers, but there are one or two moments where characters do things so out of character for a cheap bit of extra "tension" that they're genuinely laughable.Very surprised to see this has got a wider release. Could only recommend seeing it if there are no good comedies out as sadly you won't find a single scare or indeed original moment here.

filmcriticalmiss Saw this at a festival last year and wasn't sure it was going to get distribution, but, against what appeared to be the general feeling it looks like it has a distributor for August, so have decided to post my notes.The premise is the usual one for scary, strange-bump-in-the-night movies, emotionally challenged husband moves innocent family out of the big city and in to harms way. This is fine, after all, we all need to get our characters out of their comfort zones and into some kind of jeopardy, otherwise, 'Lassie' for example, would never have been made.I totally love these type of films, but what follows is unfortunately something of a mash up of all the things you've seen before that have to appear in a make-'em-jump movie. Now, of course, we could try to to convince ourselves (a la Ben Affleck's speech to Col Dolittle in 'Pearl Harbour), that copying others is not bad, its an 'homage'. But then that would force you to accept the US remake of 'The Vanishing' was an 'homage' to George Sluizer's truly taut original. So we see 'Blackwood' is a fairly lame regurgitation of all the familiar tropes, there is a twist at the end, but if you don't spot it a mile you should pop out and show yourself a good time more often, either that or you've dozed off at some point. So all in all, not so unlike Lassie, a little bit more than just a dog.

samcohensays Well, I am a huge fan of the 'things that go bump, spill your popcorn' kinda movie, so was interested from the start to see what these guys were pumping so hard in their reviews. I'm all for that to get your low budget flick a bit of a boost, but no-one likes to feel conned. The story is the usual predictable rip off of 'The Shining', house in country, tick, husband in crisis moves family away against their best wishes, tick, husband starts to lose the plot (not the only one), tick, we all see dead people, tick, lots of dark rooms, wide angles and flickering, etc, etc . . . Which is all cool, except the character development is almost non-existent, his poor wife is left as a totally 2 dimensional character, and the husband struggles to convince with such poor dialogue to work with. In conclusion, without giving anything away (you'll see it all coming a ways off), it's nothing that hasn't been done a hundred times before, and with far more flair. Rather than copying everything that's gone before, try making something original. Poor.