I was ready to hate _The New Daughter_. I didn't even set out to watch it. I don't dig horror movies in general, so I was puttering around the house while my wife watched. To my own surprise, it drew me in and I ended up making sure that I was near the TV for the final scenes.
This is not your typical horror movie. It's not really even a psychological thriller. It's basically a Lovecraftian story about things Man Was Not Meant To Know, and the horrors that lurk just out of sight of our everyday civilization; that drive mad anyone unfortunate enough to confront them.
What some people have called "plodding", I would instead refer to as "even pacing". The story sets a slow, but deliberate pace and it keeps it up for most of the film. That is part of the atmosphere of the whole story. Costner is not so much being wooden as he is playing a man who is coming to terms with a malaise that has descended on his family. One that he can't seem to escape and that only becomes more monstrous and desperate, the more he learns about it.
Some parts are predictable, yet most are not. (Part of that predictability is that Costner's family is repeating a pattern that has occurred in the house in the past.) There was more than once when I thought, "they aren't really going there, are they? Yep, I guess they are..."
***spoiler here****
My spoiler is this: This is not a story about hope. If you like your horror stories to have happy endings and a victory dance, then this may not be the one for you. Lovecraft stories and Mythos stories rarely end with the protagonist completely conquering Evil or emerging whole, healthy and sane after confronting it.
If you like your horror to give you something to think about afterward, though, then give _The New Daughter_ a try.
This is not your typical horror movie. It's not really even a psychological thriller. It's basically a Lovecraftian story about things Man Was Not Meant To Know, and the horrors that lurk just out of sight of our everyday civilization; that drive mad anyone unfortunate enough to confront them.
What some people have called "plodding", I would instead refer to as "even pacing". The story sets a slow, but deliberate pace and it keeps it up for most of the film. That is part of the atmosphere of the whole story. Costner is not so much being wooden as he is playing a man who is coming to terms with a malaise that has descended on his family. One that he can't seem to escape and that only becomes more monstrous and desperate, the more he learns about it.
Some parts are predictable, yet most are not. (Part of that predictability is that Costner's family is repeating a pattern that has occurred in the house in the past.) There was more than once when I thought, "they aren't really going there, are they? Yep, I guess they are..."
***spoiler here****
My spoiler is this: This is not a story about hope. If you like your horror stories to have happy endings and a victory dance, then this may not be the one for you. Lovecraft stories and Mythos stories rarely end with the protagonist completely conquering Evil or emerging whole, healthy and sane after confronting it.
If you like your horror to give you something to think about afterward, though, then give _The New Daughter_ a try.