Cast/Crew: Directed and written by Todd Lincoln, starring Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan (Sgt. Bucky in Captain America) and Thomas Felton (Malfoy in Harry Potter!) in a supporting role. Wait ’til my father hears about this!

Plot: College students recreate a summoning using more sophisticated technology, which ends badly. Paranormal activity (the occurrence, not the movie) starts affecting the survivors.

Thoughts:
• Happy to see a more high-budget horror film, it’s nicely shot & most of the film is well-lit.
• It’s refreshing to see characters in a horror film have a proper gameplan & equipment (parapsychology students being haunted as opposed to regular folks).
• I felt slightly hoodwinked as Malfoy (“Patrick”) isn’t the protagonist. He is Mr. Exposition, either by himself or his audio diary tapes.
• The film addresses some ‘rules’ in the film (eg people are haunted, not houses) and the protagonists generally don’t make stupid decisions. Good show!
• The horror is quite run of the mill, e.g. quietly walk around a darkened house with a infra-red camera, spooky stuff in the background, shock!-false alarm. It’s all been seen before, although I did like how the evil would start ‘nesting’ in the house.
• The apparition takes humans (to God knows where) and I was happy to see they expounded on it (i.e. we get to see where), even if it was brief.
• I wasn’t impressed that the previously-working-for-weeks plan immediately didn’t pan out when they needed it, just to forward the plot.

Overall: A mediocre film in every aspect, it got badly panned by critics but I didn’t think it was horrible…it just wasn’t particularly good. Nice to see Malfoy getting work. Good production values, humdrum scares/tension, average film.