REVIEW - THE QUIET ONES

I guess I asked for it. But not even my better judgement can stop me from hiking off to the multiplex to pay rather too much money to see the latest lazy horror film, because I'm a sucker for a scarer. It's often out of hopefulness more than anything else, a hopefulness that persists through to the final frames of the film, that something might materialise, something altogether stranger and spookier than anything else in these PG-13 hack-jobs: quality filmmaking. But it's also out of appreciation that I'll sit through any of this shit - appreciation for the staple features of even the most commonplace horror film: smart production design, a noted reliance on the soundscape (all too rare in so many other genres), and a respect for silence on screen, and the marked effects that it can have. How invariably disastrous, then, when directors see some inexplicable need for a swift payoff, and interrupt the tension that they've so ably constructed with crude blasts of noise and fury, of ugly special effects, and of copious amounts of violence. Not only does it cheapen the film's overall standard, it also cheapens the immediate moment, particularly when the film is otherwise so grounded in physical effects, and unseen terrors. Am I writing too generally? Would you like to know more about what this specific horror film possesses besides these stale conventions? If you would, then you may reread what I've already written, since The Quiet Ones is roughly as conventional as they come. The film, which oddly was co-scripted by I'm Not There. and The Messenger's Oren Moverman, takes frequent dips into unexpected territories, moral, ethical and spiritual, but it's as quick to digress from them as onto them, and its musings on them are muddled. Performances range from surprisingly strong to unsurprisingly abysmal, though all resolutely forgettable.