3.5/10

Hammer Productions return with the latest film in the possession genre, The Quiet Ones. It stars Jared Harris as a college psych professor in the 70’s who leads a paranormal study about a supposed possessed woman on if she is really haunted or terrifyingly disturbed. I can’t really say this film was a disappointment as i didn’t expect much out of it. I can truly say that i didn’t think it would be as bad as it was. Director John Pogue definitely brings the Hammer feel with him as this film is beautifully produced with that 70’s glossy camera kind of feel. I think that the setting is what people are going to remember the most about this film years from now, and that could be a good thing as most of the other parts of this film are a complete waste of your time. The movie relies on the cheap kind of scares to move it’s audience. It’s the exact reason why i loved recent horror films like The Conjuring and Sinister. They didn’t rely on jump scares with loud frightening sounds out of nowhere to scare the audience. That is one thing that is constantly annoying about this film; the audio is set to 11 on the amplifiers. I worried about going deaf before i even remotely got scared. The film also recites the 2014 horror movie problems with not knowing how to end it’s film. The ending we get is the same one we got in Devil’s Due, and it’s just extremely lazy. What happened to closure (good or bad) in a horror movie? The script itself is very sloppy with random scenes coming out of nowhere to see what sticks. It seems that this film was written with just a series of ideas and not a story to bring them all together.This film has a lot of CGI problems in the form of fire and a Ghostbusters looking creature coming out of a character’s throat. When the ladder scene happens, it almost looks like something out of The Thing. The problem is that this is 2014, and computer effects should not be looking that bad. Besides the setting, the only other thing i enjoyed was the lead 3 actors, Harris, Sam Claifin and Olivia Cooke. Harris is just too good for this film. His dialogue is charming, witty and very fast paced. He is years ahead of the writers of this film. Claifin is the character we learn the most about as the movie goes on. He is the one we can relate the most to, and this is because of his pity for this girl who is the subject of no sleep and many brutal tests. Cooke is outstanding as the possessed woman, Jane Harper. She quickly won my respct in Bates Motel, and she puts a lot into a possession victim. That isn’t always the easiest role to play, as you are playing a role that is being controlled by an entity that you have no idea how to control. She gives Jane a sweet side that hasn’t been emotionally represented this well since Emily Rose. The Quiet Ones is a film that sets itself up like a Frankenstein creature that never comes to life by the final act. It’s good for performances, but could be so much better if it had a complete story to go with it. Not recommended.