Truly Dreadful Film

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

Crappy film

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

OUT OF THE DARK is an entirely predictable US-financed ghost story that unfortunately gains little from being shot in Colombia with a Colombian crew and Spanish director. The story feels like the usual 'Americans abroad' type tale and indeed when the ghostly back story kicks in, although it's mildly inventive, it bears too much similarity to previous ghost films like THEY WAIT, a Canadian film in which almost exactly the same stuff happens to a family who move to China with their kid and are haunted by sweat-shop ghosts.That's not to say that this film is particularly poor, because it's certainly adequate by genre standards and it refreshingly focuses on attempted chills rather than gore effects, but it's still a disappointment. Julia Stiles and Scott Speedman can do little with their predictable characters and the acting of the kid is little to write home about either. Stephen Rea stars in another 'pick up the pay cheque' type supporting role and as a whole the scary moments seem derived from the likes of SILENT HILL rather than being truly original. It's just about passable, but only if you're almost entirely unfamiliar with this entire genre of film.

My review probably isn't going to add a whole lot because quite honestly this is a RARE case where I actually agree with just about EVERYONE else in what they have said in their Summaries about this film...Basically, I suppose I just wanted to add my general agreement with most people here that the film is not terrible at all. The mood and look of the film is nice, the acting and direction are decent, and there are a FEW scary moments, but ultimately, I just don't think that it has enough depth and substance to make it a very effective Horror film. I guess I AM a bit of a sucker for Haunted Children stories, but there are two other films similar to this one that I personally like a ***LOT*** better and I wanted to come here and mention them because they have a very similar theme, but I feel are far better movies.'THE ORPHANAGE' (2007) An exquisitely moody Spanish film by one of Guillermo Del Toro's protégés.'THE AWAKENING' (2011) A very effective British Period Horror film about a Haunted Hospital starring Rebecca Hall. I think that I rated them both 9/10So, FWIW, I thought that if the premise of this film caught your interest, I really wanted to be sure to tell you about these two other films which I feel are amongst the best of this Genre. I highly recommend them!About this movie... Basically, the technical aspects are just fine. The acting and direction are good. I feel that the director did moderately well in creating a fairly decent mood. But, I think that maybe the story itself and perhaps the way it was developed could have used a bit more complexity and depth. Otherwise, it is a pretty much just a passably mild, 'Haunted Children' Horror film. And Stephen Rea is all but wasted in his role, really.I actually gave this a '5' which is a little higher than it's current 4.x, for what it's worth...P.S: BTW, I haven't seen it yet (although I've bloody HAD the film for like 3 years) but the Spanish made, English speaking movie 'FRAGILE' (2005) starring Calista Flockhart, also about a Haunted children's Hospital, looks pretty damn good...

As a Horror fan, the ghost-story and haunting sub-genre has always been my favourite. As a general cinema fan, Julia Stiles has been one of my favourite actresses since 10 Things I hate About You. And then we have the privilege of a child actress taking her first steps in what might become a long and successful career! What could possibly go wrong? The answer is everything else.Yes, the acting is decent, though I would really like to see Stiles starring as a main character in a Horror film. When your favourite actors aren't usually taking part in films from your favourite genre, it's frustrating at times. Yes, little Pixie Davies is everything a passive child victim is cut out to be in such films - innocent, adorable and helpless. Here ends anything really positive I have to say.While I can't think of an example for this story being used before, it doesn't feel original or innovative, and doesn't really keep you on edge guessing till the end. The ghosts are simply not scary. The "jump scares" are predictable and ineffective, and that's really saying something, since as we all know well thought off and finely designed jump=scares work even when you're expecting them (how could a film mess up the cheapest horror trick of the 21st century?). I actually found myself bored towards the second half of the film. Me? Bored in a horror film? Never happens. Honestly. Never.I can't stress how much I wanted to be able to give a good review. Getting Julia Stiles in a ghost-story was a dream come true. But the dream turned into a nightmare, and not in a good horror kind of way. I'm painfully disappointed. Then again, my disappointment is probably due to my high expectations. If you watch this with no expectations whatsoever - you will probably enjoy it. It's good for a few scares, especially for people who aren't usual horror viewers. But personally and subjectively - ugh, what a let down...

Not a whole lot to say about this film. It probably could have been decent given that that they seemed to have a good budget and some good actors, but they chose to go a very mediocre clichéd route with it instead.The story was very predictable, which really hurt the film since this is pretty much all story. Aside from a few jump scares, the entire thing was pretty dull and boring.It wasn't horrible, I watched the whole thing with out any temptation to shut it off, but it just felt like something I have already seen over and over again.4/10