Melanie Bjork-Jensen

I had to mute the movie and just watch subtitles after the halfway point, the baby's constant crying was overwhelming. I assume that was intentional, the audience is supposed to slowly break down along with the mom with PPD, but rather than feel connected with her character I just felt irritated and worried I was missing the storyline. The age of the ghost children who are apparently physically hiding in the wardrobe doesn't make any sense. Why would they be 10 and 12, approximately, when they were killed as newborns 40 years ago? I feel like the husband's character was fairly believable, as you watch him buy a house for her with big hopes, sing and play the guitar for his baby, then have the worst possible days at work, and come home to feeling like his baby is unsafe with his own wife who doesn't act like she likes or wants him. But his dismissals of her obviously massive feelings, like saying "it's just the depression" when she tries to open up, make him the typical 'absent husband in a horror movie' trope. I did give 2 stars instead of 1, because I did feel unsettled for much of the film, not confident about how much of the story was in her head, and at what point she might 'wake up' and find that she'd hurt or killed her baby. But upsetting is no replacement for plot or coherent storyline. Did the entire house get cleansed of ghosts from a completely unrelated horrific trauma just because she overcame the PP depression? It's the girl, Anna, who should be haunting the home. If she'd been trying to take the baby to replace her own murdered ones that would be a far more terrifying storyline. I have so many pieces of the movie floating in my head that don't connect--why would there be diapers under the couch as a signal that there were other babies there, when the babies were killed as newborns and never wore a diaper? And why was Emma Roberts' character wearing the murdered woman's ribbon all day every day? If you believed you were being haunted and are afraid, why wear an obvious token of one of the victims? And why doesn't the neighbor/abandoned child/trauma victim get his own conclusion? He's happy and smiling and reconnecting with his baseball childhood at the end, just because a look-alike of his sister lives nearby? And why don't they ever divulge how everyone was killed in the house? It was gunshots at the beginning, but an axe is more prevalent in the hauntings. And it ends with her being pregnant again, potentially as an "aww look, happily ever after" moment, when maybe another pregnancy and birth will send her spiraling right back into PPD and potentially psychosis, which she refused to take medication for. Sometimes medication IS the answer and a massive help, that was poorly handled by the writers. And that psychiatrist, willing to come to their home to put her down, make her feel broken, and bring physical medication with him to force her to be compliant with a treatment for a disease that could potentially kill that baby--only to jump up at leave her under the supervision of a man he'd never met or heard about before. He was told it would only be an hour. Worst doctor ever. Did not love it.

Many points to mention, unfortunately... Spoiler alert, for those who aren't turned off by the poor ratings. Bad. Acting. As our poor damsel in distress is searching for a weapon, or a bobby pin, or a way out, her head turns up, down, side, side, behind her, up again, all while breathing more heavily than even this dire situation calls for. She literally narrates her thought process in a few places. An example, the first time the killer locks her in the bedroom, the door clicks as he leave, and suddenly she can't open it. Aloud, she wonders, "did he lock it?" ... Also, how many times must this poor woman painfully hop up and down that enormous staircase before she accepts the guest bedroom on the first floor, which is literally what the crazy murderer offered her in the first place. Even Mr. "I'll just kill and half-bury (or forget to bury altogether) everybody I see, and kidnap a co-worker, at whom I've been photographed on multiple occasions staring creepily from across the room, with zero consequences" could see the logic in that move. Also, how random is the tattoo-to-last-name connection? Maybe I'm not aware of an entire sub-law of tattoos, where only "Allens" can buy that particular font, of that particular letter? So much to learn... Also, why is this ankle-broken-in-multiple-places woman able to constantly slip away quickly and quietly away from a physically fit hell-bent psychopath? Also, when she finally knocks him out and takes his keys, why is her first thought to run outside on her disabled foot and halfheartedly hobble through sparse trees looking for a phone signal, instead of going for one of the many cars she's already discovered in the garage? Every "saved by the bell" moment lunged in at exactly the last second, over and over, to the point where you could sit back and predict a save to the near-second, based solely on how intense the music was getting. Why didn't her actual husband's parents conduct an investigation? Her parents weren't the only people who would miss two happy and contributing-to-society people. Also, huge point of order, amnesia? But only about recent memories? She knew both her actual husband and the creepy-co-worker-turned-murdered for YEARS, why didn't that translate on through the fog? I ended up watching it through the end simply in the hopes of one, simple plot twist, that would make up for the impossibly predictable show's trajectory (the one big twist is literally played out in the trailer), and finished off this disappointing movie with that one last let down. While it's heartening that the detective is able to move on from the tragic loss of his daughter after all these years, the heroine is able to move past the horrific murders of her parents and her soulmate, as well as the PTSD of being kidnapped and psychologically tortured for weeks, in just three months. I really don't mean to be cruel... these are just honest questions I have mulling around in my mind after watching this very awful movie, and I just really want the head space back, please.