When I first heard that Adam Sandler was launching a new branch of his Happy Madison production company to make horror movies (aptly titled Scary Madison), I thought two things; One, the guy has problems making funny movies, what the hell is he doing trying to be creepy? And two, since he's a big name maybe he will at least throw some money at said creepy movies and make them pretty.
Unfortunately, this is absolutely a B-movie. C-grade even.
Worse still, the whole thing feels rather half-assed. It had me going at first, and I actually got into it, but by the third act I was rolling my eyes because I knew what was coming... Now, I'm not trying to sound all "I always figure out what's gonna happen in movies because I'm really, really smart", it was just crazy obvious. Not only was it obvious, but the twist at the end... horrible. I won't spoil the movie by delving deeper into what happens, but if you see it you'll know what I mean. Just poor.
The constant jumping back and forth between timelines thing got annoying too, mainly because it spoiled the film's big reveal, though it was lame anyways. Had this movie played it straight forward rather than trying to be clever, it might not have come of as trite and cliched as it did.
On the positive side, the characters were decent and mostly likable, and the movie maintained a fun feel while keeping up the tension pretty well in the early going. It did have promise, it just couldn't deliver on it in the end. Oh, and Katrina Bowden is a joy to watch on screen, as are Shannon Woodward's sweater pillows.
I can't hate this movie, because it had some good things going for it, but the production value, script, mundane story, lame twist all made it something that I just can't like all that much. I can't decide between giving this movie a C- or a D+. Let's just call it below average but not painful? At least the chicks were an A+.
