When the name Guillermo del Toro is above the title of a movie, even in the capacity of producer, expectations are high.
The plot:
A wealthy couple, one an architect, the other an interior designer, move into an imposing new home, ripe for renovation. With them, the daughter of the man from another marriage, reluctantly forced to move by her natural mother to start a life with half a new family.
Got it?
The house seems strange to her, forbidding and, soon, she discovers an old outhouse at the rear of the property, buried through years of apparent neglect.
Excavating the building, the family are astonished to discover an artists studio from a previous owner and, besides that, the young girl suspects that there are things alive in there, things that creep and crawl and come to play mischief whilst everyone is asleep.
What is the connection between the building and the human teeth the young girl finds?
Why are the voices whispering to her?
And there aren’t any such thing as fairies, are there?
It’s a promising premise and, from the trailer, looked as if this would be a riot of imagination, the dark side of fairy tales explored.
The reality is quite different.
Formulaic horror tropes are trotted out: creaking floorboards, creepy music boxes, small creatures moving through the shadows.
At no point is there a genuine surprise.
The performances of the adult cast are not so much phoned in as sent by carrier pigeon, including the usually excellent Guy Pearce.
Spooky on occasion, but nowhere near as involving as it needed to be, this disappointed quite severely.
2 out of 5
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