Film 40 - The Quiet Ones

The Quiet Ones - 11/04/2014

Why does it feel so long since I have seen a really good horror/scary film?

I enjoy a good scare whilst watching a film, but it seems like a barrage of current "scary" films are not coming up to the mark.  Have I become desensatised through an early upbringing of horror, is new-age cinema struggling to come up with new scares?   I have had the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stand whilst playing games such as Dead Space 2 and Condemned, so obviously I have not become senseless, I watched Martyrs (2008) recently and found it truly horrific, new films such as Paranormal Activity gave me the Heebie-jeebies, but a few films I have recently seen at the cinema just seem...lazy

The Quiet Ones, for the first hour, follows the age old tactic of quiet, quiet quiet, LOUD!!! to achieve jump scares, which for me, are really cheap and pointless.  The third act seems to take a psychological horror route which starts to work and then the usual "how do we end the film?" question gets raised and never gets answered, as with many horror films.

Set in 1974, a group of students and their obsessed tutor experiment on a willing subject who is having supernatural occurrences happen to her on an increasing level.  This is part filmed by their newly appointed camera man (found footage style) and part filmed in the usual style.  Some of the acting is terrible and really stands out, some of the effects are terrible but the film has a decent pace so I wasn't bored watching it, just not scared.

I was excited at the credits to see this was a Hammer Studios Production, which could mean good things for the future of horror films....maybe