MovieChat Forums > The Enfield Haunting (2015) Discussion > Highly disappointing!!

Highly disappointing!!

posted 9 years ago by mindflowers1
10 replies | jump to latest

Never really make the effort to complain about things on here but I was so disappointed I felt the urge to.

The actual real Enfield Haunting is possibly one of the scariest and compelling 'real' occurrences out there. So with so much rich 'evidence' and stories about those events why was so much of the really good stuff omitted. I understand that the story is based on events and they had to shoe horn a story around it but it just ended up being awful.

- Poor acting and unrealistic casualness to the situation from Rosie Cavaliero & Timothy Spall.
- Unnecessary inclusions that took the story from believable and pretty scary to ridiculous Hollywood aspects and stupid admissions that detracted from the story.
- The pacing was off and rushed.

This had all the ingredients to be amazing but the realised version just became laughable. What started in the first episode as brilliant quickly spiraled into a *beep* of nonsense.

Fortunately. The Conjuring 2 comes out next year about this story and hopefully it can redeem this crock.

Youtube the documentary of the real Enfield Haunting and that would show you so many other and better ways it could have gone.

[–] dmaherishere-556-53290 9 years ago

Agree 100% hated the fact you kept seeing the old man ghost it made it stupid.

[–] clacton0 9 years ago

I though this was a pretty good series I gave it a 7 out of 10 which is quite high for me.
Also thought the girl actor was OK to.
I watched them all on Sky Demand.

www.youtube.com/eastangliauk

[–] WalterKovacks 9 years ago

Totally agree on the "old man", especially ruined the hanging scene. Would've preferred to have a look of horror on the girls face, but the audience not to see anything at all.

Less is more.

[–] dmaherishere-556-53290 9 years ago

Exactly! From my knowledge it was a poltergeist case not a haunting.

[–] WalterKovacks 9 years ago

Also got the feeling they didn't know how to end it. Shame really.

GIMME BACK MY FACE!!!!!!!

[–] Targetrich 9 years ago

To anyone born before the modern age of horror films almost entirely consisting of men with chainsaws attacking attractive American teens, it's extremely difficult to find a decent 'bump in the night' programme or film.

I thought this was a pretty good attempt. Timothy Spall was excellent - sympathetic to watch, and the girls put in solid performances too.

To paraphrase Stephen King, as soon as you see the horrific thing, part of your mind tells you 'well, ok, it's a 30 foot tall spider, but at least it's only 30 feet tall'. the imagination is a far more powerful and intense tool particularly for bringing chills. So yes, I too was disappointed that we saw Joe as often as we did, and that there was as much activity as was shown. Lying in bed thinking about how the teapot moved in the first episode and hoping the dressing gown on the back of the door in your bedroom doesn't do the same, is a lot more scary than Joe's face popping up.

btw, if you want to be scared by a scary face popping up out of the blue, the 70's version of Salem's Lot is what you want to watch...

[–] ThatNoodleLizard 9 years ago

To anyone born before the modern age of horror films almost entirely consisting of men with chainsaws attacking attractive American teens

When was the last time you went to see a horror movie? The slasher genre hasn't been popular since the 80s, really. The last film I remember even closely resembling what you're talking about was one of the remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The "popular" horror movies today tend to be stuff like The Conjuring and Insidious or found-footage movies in the vein of Paranormal Activity and REC.

I do think horror's as bad as it gets at the moment, and think there are very few new ones even worth watching (including all the ones I mentioned, except REC possibly), but you're using a very old cliché to say modern horror's all about chainsaws and sexy teens.

[–] Targetrich 9 years ago

Well, there's 'You're next, 'It follows', 'cabin in the woods', oh etc etc your post is too tiresome to respond at length to.

The point is it's good to see a haunting, rather than a chopping.

[–] ThatNoodleLizard 9 years ago

You obviously haven't seen It Follows, there's not a single weapon in that movie. Much more of a "haunter" than anything else. That being said, I didn't think much of it.

Cabin In The Woods is a satirical pastiche of all horror genres, it seems incredibly reductive to boil that down to "American teens getting attacked with chainsaws". It's a very unique film.

I haven't seen You're Next, but I hear that does a similar job of subverting the slasher genre and its tropes rather than just being another one.

Really, the most popular horror films now are "haunting" ones (with the occasional zombie one thrown in). The Conjuring, Insidious, Paranormal Activity, Sinister (in fact almost any Blumhouse film), The Woman In Black remake etc. While I suppose it's encouraging to see that become the preferred genre of horror, all of those films are really inadequate when compared with something like The Innocents or Mario Bava's films. It's the difference between the original The Haunting and its 1999 remake.

The Enfield Haunting, likewise, just seems a bit trite and "easy" when compared with something like Ghostwatch, for instance, which is loosely based on the same case.

[–] bsw03 8 years ago

I think comparing this movie and the Conjuring does both a disservice as they are different genres. Once I realized that Enfield Haunting was not a horror series but a drama, Skyline even mentions this, with horror elements I enjoyed it more. I thought the ending revelation of the dramatic story was a bit hokey, but sometimes dramas are about redemption. I enjoyed the ambiguous elements of the series mostly, and the causal live-life attitudes until an event happened. Moments of terror and uncertainty interrupting the monotonousness of life. I was disappointed that the marketing department decided to promote Enfield as strictly horror rather than a dramatic horror story. As the latter, I was fairly content with Enfield.

From what I've read the movie Conjuring takes quite a few liberties itself. I'm not really a fan of the slew of Insidious, Paranormal, V/H/S, or Conjuring films. I do not find most of them very scary (outside of the shock sights), interesting, very unconventional, or original.

I enjoy the A Haunting tv series (in which the Warrens (The Conjuring) are references in an episode or two), independent horror like Blood Red Earth or the Burrowers, or South Korean and some Asian horror films. If you enjoy watching shows where "real people" are claiming to talk about "real occurrences" that happen to them, with dramatic flair and through re-enactment, check out early seasons of A Haunting on youtube.