But maybe not great, although I will need to see it again at some point. The number of films that came to mind while watching it was distracting.

With the kid dying I just don’t think the film does, or realistically can do, anything that really can hit on that emotional level. Like that is a really important and devastating thing that happens to that family.

I don’t see, e.g. how a body in an attic can really compare- even if it’s more spooky it’s not traumatic really- and the same is true for every thing suprnatural afterwards. (The table scene is fantastically played).

I sort of get that a lot of umbrella stuff is explainable but it’s not clear for example why the soul in the book jumps around to the dad and the death means fire or why toni Collette can move around the ceiling or naked people are in the house or why the boy’s face is reflected as smiley. I can see how some of these things can fit the text they literally insert into the movie to explain stuff but it feels entirely clumsy and a bit all over the place.

Take the dads death: he’s murdered by Toni Colette because he needs to be dead (maybe?) fine - why does Toni Collette go through such a palaver to get him to that point- up the stairs, dead body, tell him to burn the book oh fuck it I’ll just throw the book, a man is on fire for the trailer - felt like a lot of set piecery for the sake of set piecery.

It’s not done in a way like the wicker man where you get the sense the destiny exists in a naturalistic way and plays out in an odd but internally consistent way