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Fantastic Movie, Underminded by the 2 Most Childish Jump Scares in Move History


Two of this movie's jump scares (I think they're the only two in this movie) are two flashes of complete childishness in an otherwise very convincincly scary horror film. Here they are:

1. Baghuul in the attic: Ethan Hawke peeks into the attic and sees 5 children sitting there watching a home movie. Baghuul appears in the home movie and walks toward the camera. Right as he reaches the camera, his head darts into frame in front of Hawke's face as your typical jump scare stinger noises play over it. That movie was seemingly one of his portals. Wouldn't it have made more narrative sense (and been more frightening) if he simply emerged from the projection on the wall? If, for a second, he was rendered to make the viewer wonder "Did he just leave the projection?" that would have been terrifying.

2. Baghuul at the end: Everything's over. Random dumb zoom out from the box of home movies. Ambient music fades. Baghuul's face and stinger sound effects before cut to credits. Dumb. The movie ruins any dread that may have been lingering by pointing its finger at us and yelling "gotcha" for no reason other than smashing the fourth wall in order to prank us.

I'm really impressed by everything else this movie has going for it.

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