I can see why someone would like this film.
That being said, I found this movie to be irritating to watch.
First, the kid screams *constantly* for the first part of the film. Shrill, high pitched screaming. While I understand that this was necessary for the role, I just wanted her to shut up. So utterly grating was her high pitched screeching, that I lost any sympathy for her character. I wanted someone to just clock her good, to shut her up. You can tell she was directed not to immediately respond to Hopkins's interventions. I was deeply annoyed at the directors for this because it prolonged the howling. Again - probably good direction in service of the story, complete agony for me.
Second, the mother is a constant emotional wreck, which is annoying to watch as well. Again, I admit - necessary for the film, but it got so incredibly tiresome watching this woman in a state of constant distress. Take a Valium already or go to church or just off yourself, please, for the love of god, the constant worried crease in your brow is making me dyspeptic. Pull yourself together, you miserable cow or at least, please SHUT UP.
Then, there were the predictable plot devices, where the father refuses to believe Hopkins's claims and motivations. The hostility - necessary and consistent with the believability of the plot, was tiresome and obligatory. Yes, we get it, you think the guy's either a shyster or a nutcase and you're hostile to him. Can we please just flash forward a week or something and get past this? We know we're watching a horror movie with probably supernatural overtones. Can we all agree as audience and filmmakers that yeah, the guy is all skeptical as anyone would be, in real life, and then just jump forward? Every stupid film dealing with the supernatural makes us go through this. The skeptic in horror films is like a placeholder. Perhaps flash a title card, "For the first 45 minutes of this film, the father was skeptical, and very angry at those who weren't." It would save a lot of screen time.
(It's like television, too - you have a super genius but non-traditional cop who is *always* right, over and over, yet every time he posits some kind of theory, his chair-warming superiors scoff at it even though the cop has solved like 400 cases in the last year and is never wrong. TIRESOME.)
Then, as others have mentioned, there is the tired 70s new age crap. I can't really expound further on this, except to say, 70s new age crap sucks. (See the movie "Serial" for a fun send up of all of that garbage.) Not a horrible movie by any stretch, but for me, at least, completely unpleasant to watch. Whatever virtues there were in the story, they were overshadowed by my boundless discontent.
Maybe you can sit through this and see the kinda okay movie underneath all of these annoyances. But you'd better be okay with the sound of screeching children.
I would also warn you that creepy mustaches abound, as they apparently did everywhere, in the 70s.
That being said, I found this movie to be irritating to watch.
First, the kid screams *constantly* for the first part of the film. Shrill, high pitched screaming. While I understand that this was necessary for the role, I just wanted her to shut up. So utterly grating was her high pitched screeching, that I lost any sympathy for her character. I wanted someone to just clock her good, to shut her up. You can tell she was directed not to immediately respond to Hopkins's interventions. I was deeply annoyed at the directors for this because it prolonged the howling. Again - probably good direction in service of the story, complete agony for me.
Second, the mother is a constant emotional wreck, which is annoying to watch as well. Again, I admit - necessary for the film, but it got so incredibly tiresome watching this woman in a state of constant distress. Take a Valium already or go to church or just off yourself, please, for the love of god, the constant worried crease in your brow is making me dyspeptic. Pull yourself together, you miserable cow or at least, please SHUT UP.
Then, there were the predictable plot devices, where the father refuses to believe Hopkins's claims and motivations. The hostility - necessary and consistent with the believability of the plot, was tiresome and obligatory. Yes, we get it, you think the guy's either a shyster or a nutcase and you're hostile to him. Can we please just flash forward a week or something and get past this? We know we're watching a horror movie with probably supernatural overtones. Can we all agree as audience and filmmakers that yeah, the guy is all skeptical as anyone would be, in real life, and then just jump forward? Every stupid film dealing with the supernatural makes us go through this. The skeptic in horror films is like a placeholder. Perhaps flash a title card, "For the first 45 minutes of this film, the father was skeptical, and very angry at those who weren't." It would save a lot of screen time.
(It's like television, too - you have a super genius but non-traditional cop who is *always* right, over and over, yet every time he posits some kind of theory, his chair-warming superiors scoff at it even though the cop has solved like 400 cases in the last year and is never wrong. TIRESOME.)
Then, as others have mentioned, there is the tired 70s new age crap. I can't really expound further on this, except to say, 70s new age crap sucks. (See the movie "Serial" for a fun send up of all of that garbage.) Not a horrible movie by any stretch, but for me, at least, completely unpleasant to watch. Whatever virtues there were in the story, they were overshadowed by my boundless discontent.
Maybe you can sit through this and see the kinda okay movie underneath all of these annoyances. But you'd better be okay with the sound of screeching children.
I would also warn you that creepy mustaches abound, as they apparently did everywhere, in the 70s.