31 Days of Fright, Day 9: Them

Welcome to day 9 of 31 Days of Fright here at Road To The Movies! In today's episode, Jonathan wonders if he has psychic powers as he reviews...

THEM
2006
Rated R

I'm all for a good psychotic thriller. And I especially love foreign horror movies. So naturally, I had high hopes for Them. I was hoping it would take the psychological aspect of horror to the extreme. I was hoping it would show me new and innovative ideas to build tension and really suck the viewers in. I was hoping a lot of things, and what I got was largely mediocre.

If someone forced me to describe this movie in one word, it would be predictable. I haven't seen a more predictable movie in years. Claiming to be based on a true story (and the blurb at the start of the credits certainly adds a lot of mystery and intrigue to this idea), it promises very intense representations of a very real and very screwed up occurrence. And please, don't get me wrong, some of the scenes are very startling, and I'm big enough to admit I jumped a few times, But from the middle to the end of the movie, I was guessing the outcomes well before they happened, and I found myself 100% right every time. There's little that drags me out of the illusion of a motion picture more than the regurgitation of the same things over and over again with the tagline "based on a true story" to attempt to make it stand out more than the rest.

Ok, before I get too far criticizing this movie, I should tell you a little of what it's about. A couple moves into a house, they begin to get terrorized in their secluded forest home, and the people doing the psychological damage are unseen through almost the whole movie. Sound familiar? There is a very interesting twist to the movie (which one can see coming a mile away), and it adds a certain amount of mystery to the film. It's intriguing enough to sit through, and it's a great suspense film, I just found myself being sucked out of the story far too often to enjoy it. While I can see how a large group of people would be genuinely scared and would love this movie, it didn't resonate with me in any real way, and it left me largely disappointed.

Watch it if you're into suspense, watch it if you're into horror, watch it if you're into psychological dramas...don't watch it if you feel as though you've seen every twist and turn before, because this will only fuel your bitterness.

4/10

-JONATHAN


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