THE NURSERY ** USA 2018 Dir: Christopher A. Miklos & Jay Sapiro 87 mins
In the never ending universe of movies trying to jump on the bandwagon of Hollywood horror blockbusters like INSIDIOUS, THE RING and THE CONJURING we have yet another example of how a poor script, mediocre acting and the directors insistent over egging of the suspense can make a fairly solid idea go horribly wrong. Ranae (Madeline Conway) is a young woman grief stricken by the loss of her mother a year ago. She takes a job babysitting the 3 month old boy of a couple, with their own hidden secrets, as they go out for the night.
After hearing things, seeing odd visions and then receiving a horrible picture supposedly from her friend she starts to freak out. She calls her friend Cally who insists she was not responsible for sending the picture. Worried about Ranae, Cally (Emmaline Friederichs) and a couple of friends go round to check on her. Once there after a short while they all start to notice something is not right within the house. They all start seeing things and getting sent horrific images on their phones. Luckily Ranaes younger brother Ray (Marco Lama) is really into all things supernatural so they call on him to do some investigating. What he discovers seems harmless at first but as the night goes on and people start disappearing will they discover what kind of malevolent spirit they are dealing with before it’s all too late? This could have been an ok movie if it wasn’t so painfully cliche with so many things we’ve seen a thousand times over. Long drawn out scenes of characters walking ridiculously slow down hallways hyperventilating and whimpering, never turning the lights on when going into those dark rooms and everybody’s favourite the ” is there someone behind the shower curtain” scare, this has them all. As usual the characters are not very well introduced or very likeable, probably to make more time for those pretentious build ups. The character of Ray, the younger brother, being the strongest even though we only see him on a computer screen. He seems the most comfortable in his role and kind of reminds me of Chandler Riggs. Just when you think things couldn’t be anymore predictable it does throw in a bit of an unexpected twist which did peak my interest momentarily so I will give it that. The ghost herself is nothing new but is pretty sinister. Not a lot of gore to speak of but the make up and visuals are good, the soundtrack has some pleasing tunes in it too. So it’s not all terrible but I just can’t get past the bad timing on the supposed scares and the acting is mostly awkward to watch because it’s just so drawn out. With the enormous influx of very similar low budget supernatural horror movies out there, if you have seen any of them over this last decade then there is nothing new here.
Review by Sarah Budd