Review of The Quiet Ones (2014) by Guillermobm — 19 Jan 2016

I just can't believe that this lackluster mess came out from Hammer Productions. 40/100 [C-].

I am not a fan of John Pogue. He directed the Quarantine sequel called Quarantine 2: Terminal, and even though I enjoyed some scenes in its first act, the rest of it was quite tedious and dumb. The Quiet Ones is just as uneven as Quarantine 2, and that was so disappointing. Hammer Productions has made great modern horror films such as The Woman in Black and Let Me In, but this one was such a flop. The movie has an awesome cast, and unfortunately the worst director possible. Moving on, the character development felt extremely rushed and forced. The performances were good, but some of the characters were not developed enough and I did not care about them. Krissi (Erin Richards) and Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne) were annoying and unlikable.

I just wanted to slap the director because he wasted an incredible cast. Olivia Cooke, Jared Harris and Sam Claflin deserved a better script! Cooke (from the TV show Bates Motel) was stunning. Claflin gave his best too. Thankfully, The Quiet Ones proves two things: do not trust in trailers, and do not trust in Hammer anymore. Overall, it is just your average horror movie with tons of jump scares, a creepy house and brainless characters. It uses an unnecessary found-footage format that does not even add atmosphere or realism to the film. Yes, it boasts a few scares but nothing epic or memorable. Even though I enjoyed a few scenes, I can not recommend it. It was quite average, the best things about it were the performances and the costume design.

I could say that the movie was slightly above average, but the last 10 minutes were just plain bad to me, they were very confusing, stupid and laughable. Also, in the last five minutes there was a scene that has CGI fire, it looked so fake and cheap. As I said the strength of the film was the production value; such as the costumes, camera work and locations. It is a shame that the scares in the trailer looked terrifying, but in the movie itself these scares were silly and hilarious. Anyway, leaving aside its flaws, I actually enjoyed four or five moments in the film, maybe even more, I do not remember. That is why I think that it deserves a decent 2/5 rating. It was not an atrocious movie, my main problem with The Quiet Ones is that wasted its huge potential.