Review Contents Here

I haven’t avoided checking out this movie… Okay, maybe a little I did. There were a few times that I started watching it and bailed out after 5 minutes. Nothing specific that made me stop, I just wasn’t feeling it.

But then I watched it. And now I am kicking myself for waiting so long.

In case you haven’t seen it, it is absolutely well worth the time invested in it. I suppose it does technically fill the foreign horror niche that I tend to gravitate towards as this is an Australian movie. Although I didn’t latch onto that until a driving scene about half way through where it is shown to be a right hand driver. And I do wonder if I missed earlier cues, because there was a rather important driving scene in the beginning. But I can say with certainty that it was a left side driver. So I’m a bit confused about that part. Although in the scheme of things, cars are not as big a part of this movie as candles. And a hand statue.

Ok…. While I should go delete the majority of that paragraph, I shall instead debase myself by admitting that I watched two movies last night and the car thing was absolutely from the second of the movies. But I stand by the closing of the paragraph where I say that cars are not a big part of this movie…. Moving along…

The core of this movie centers around a statue of a hand. Although at one point they make a claim that it is an actual hand encased within the statue. The hand has a supernatural power allowing an individual to commune with a random deceased being. Although more precisely, the deceased being takes control of the individual. This is used as a party game by a group who takes great delight in the peculiarities that occur as the person has lost control of their body.

There are rules to it. Light a candle to open the door, say “Talk to me” and grasp the hand, then say “I’ll let you in”… And an all important one being “only go for 90 seconds.” All this followed by blowing out the candle to close the door.

Just a side note here. I always wonder about rule sets like this in movies. How do you know? I mean with the Mogwai in Gremlins, you can figure out the effects of water. And of sunlight. And of feeding them after midnight. So that rule set can be learned and explained. But how does one figure out lighting and blowing out the candles as being relevant. And the phrasing of “I let you in.” The 90 second thing can be discovered by bad things happening if you exceed it. Is there some Bureau of Demonic Rules and Guidelines? Hmmm, that’s a good title for a story. Hold on while I make a quick note.

Back to the movie. Jade, Mia, and Jade’s younger brother Riley go to a party. The hand is brought out and the group is not sure who should go first. So Mia chimes in offering to. There is an initial horror to what she sees when she grasps the hand for the first time. But she carries through anyway. And it gets a bit wild right up until they try to stop it 83 seconds. But the being inside Mia doesn’t want to give up the hand. And they go over the 90 second mark. Seemingly without any real effect, beyond things getting scary.

The aftermath of the party has Jade’s little brother scared to go to sleep. Riley and Jade talk about what she experienced. He is frightened, but intrigued by the experience she had.

Jade talks to the girl, Hayley, who hosted the party. Her boyfriend Daniel wants to try the hand. So a party is set up for that night. Which results in everyone in the group taking turn after turn. Fun and hijinks are the rule of the day. Until Riley wants a go. Jade says absolutely not. The two fight and Jade leaves the room as Hayley decides it’s time to pack up and leave. But Riley convinces Mia to let him have a 50 second go with the hand.

And this is where things take a turn for the worse. The being possessing him decides to hurt Riley and begins smashing his head into the table. When they try to stop him, he begins being tossed about in the room. His 50 seconds winds up way over and is only stopped when Jade returns to the sound of screaming. Finally disengaging him from the hand before getting him to the emergency room for the massive injuries inflicted to his head.

One thing I really liked about this was that it brought echoes of Flatliners to my mind. The main difference being that in Flatliners they were doctors experimenting with the idea of stopping their hearts so they could get a near death experience, then returning. There was a similar time element, as they didn’t want to wait too long before reviving. If you haven’t seen the original Flatliners, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

At this point we have two different supernatural traumas going. Mia appears to be having echoes of her possessions bleeding into her life. And Riley seems to still be possessed, as whenever he begins to get coherent again, inflicts more pain and damage to himself.

Going to hold off on the story there. I don’t want to get into any of the climactic moments.

This is the feature film debut of Danny and Michael Philippou. And an amazing one at that. They have confirmed a planned sequel. Which I am excited about, and a prequel. But first a different project coming in about a month titled Bring Her Back. This duo has me excited for original horror ideas in the same way that Morgan and Wong did when they started the Final Destination franchise. Unfortunately they stalled after getting that started. I hope these two manage to keep the ball rolling. I give this 9 stars. There aren’t many issues I can find with it.