I've given this a 3 for it's slightly different take on the "cursed object" type horror movie.
A law firm receive a gift of an African nail fetish - a wooden statue that you make promises to before striking a nail into it, to supposedly seal your promise. This one is haunted though, and will summon a big nail monster to get you, for no readily apparent reason, (it was very unclear to me if anyone actually broke their promises). But not for a while.
In the meantime, we have plot about the bosses daughter bunking school, sexual harassment at work, bullying behaviour of a female partner, dating scenes, arguing scenes - none of which seem to be relevant to the story, the only horror on screen for most of the movie, is the acting.
Did I mention that this was a law firm?.... and did I mention that they had been warned by the obligatory spooky person that the fetish was dangerous and not to be messed with? So why would the 3 senior partners think "Hey! Guess I'll make a promise and bang a nail into the fetish, just for a laugh of course!" (please don't say they were "bewitched" - that would be a cop out). Surely senior partners of any law firm would be, well, busy, at least too busy and too intelligent to even care about what ornaments are in their reception area? In fact, you hardly see a single client, just the partners either bonking, fighting or drinking - and the boss is upset that a rival law firm wins an award! Geez - go do some work!
Though I don't know why I'm surprised - this is a film that has to tell it's audience that they are watching a scary sequence by using a red filter and using a really annoying "whispering" sound effect. Well I'm sorry but there were no scares for me, the monster appeared to be more of a big clumsy pest than something to be truly terrified of.
The ending was almost unbelievably unethical, but then I suppose they were supposed to be lawyers after all.
Sorry, but with this film, I had felt like banging nails into myself just to try and stay awake.
A law firm receive a gift of an African nail fetish - a wooden statue that you make promises to before striking a nail into it, to supposedly seal your promise. This one is haunted though, and will summon a big nail monster to get you, for no readily apparent reason, (it was very unclear to me if anyone actually broke their promises). But not for a while.
In the meantime, we have plot about the bosses daughter bunking school, sexual harassment at work, bullying behaviour of a female partner, dating scenes, arguing scenes - none of which seem to be relevant to the story, the only horror on screen for most of the movie, is the acting.
Did I mention that this was a law firm?.... and did I mention that they had been warned by the obligatory spooky person that the fetish was dangerous and not to be messed with? So why would the 3 senior partners think "Hey! Guess I'll make a promise and bang a nail into the fetish, just for a laugh of course!" (please don't say they were "bewitched" - that would be a cop out). Surely senior partners of any law firm would be, well, busy, at least too busy and too intelligent to even care about what ornaments are in their reception area? In fact, you hardly see a single client, just the partners either bonking, fighting or drinking - and the boss is upset that a rival law firm wins an award! Geez - go do some work!
Though I don't know why I'm surprised - this is a film that has to tell it's audience that they are watching a scary sequence by using a red filter and using a really annoying "whispering" sound effect. Well I'm sorry but there were no scares for me, the monster appeared to be more of a big clumsy pest than something to be truly terrified of.
The ending was almost unbelievably unethical, but then I suppose they were supposed to be lawyers after all.
Sorry, but with this film, I had felt like banging nails into myself just to try and stay awake.