The classic film opening - bit of music, bit of scenery from lots of angles, big shots of the city and then blamo we have Casey jogging along a bridge, one snowy morning in a park (twasn’t really a ‘blamo’ moment tbh). She sees a glove lying on the path and being easily distracted she decides to pick it up. Behind her a sickly looking child stares at her wearing only one glove. She turns away and sees a bulldog wearing a plain white mask over its face and follows it into the woods where she finds a jar with a foetus inside.

Disturbed Casey is having lots of problems lately. She hallucinates weird things and her bathroom mirror seems to be vibrating all the time. She stares to black out in class and all she sees written everywhere is “Jumby wants to be born now”. What’s even stranger is that one of her eyes is also changing colour from brown to bright blue. The figure of the little boy in her dream occurs time and time again along with freaky masked dogs.

And you know what? Despite all the heavy criticism of this film, the aggregate score of 12% on Rotten Tomatoes and the fact that it seemed to solely publicise itself on the basis of the lead actress having a fine ass, I thought this film was actually good. Surprisingly so. I expected to dislike, hell, I almost wanted to dislike it but nope I thought it was well worth the watch.

Second major advantage is the Jewish context was fresh. It’s almost like every horror film with demons and ghosts is being funded by the Catholic Church because it’s always a priest to the rescue. Which of those donation envelopes that you get to give in chapel are for the Hollywood propaganda collection? The green ones? I don’t mean to criticise Catholicism, I want to keep my review short but you get sick of it over and over again in films. Gary Oldman was probably not the best choice for a rabbi though. I don’t think I’ve ever knowingly met a Jew in my life, but I wouldn’t picture one as Gary Oldman. They shoulda went with a stereotype. Also it has to be said he didn’t act brilliantly either.

Sadly this film isn’t all up, up, up. It has its drawbacks. The story is predictable and clichéd and the finale was disappointing. Although the imagery and concept is unique, it’s executed in the same old way. Flashes of the scary ghost child from a distance and in nightmares. The wise old person who lives in a home, who’s very friendly at first but who turns nasty when she finds out what they’ve come to talk about only to call them back later and tell them everything is such a cliché it’s horrible and should never be allowed in a film again.

As for Gary Oldman, how disappointing. He’s one of the reasons why I bought this DVD as I believe him to be a tremendous actor and one of my all time favourites but he was seriously bad in this film. I know I say I liked this film but Gary Oldman lowered himself for this role and shouldn’t have wasted his time. He doesn’t look or act like a rabbi and he doesn’t look or act like he really cares for the role to be honest. It’s like he himself has decided to spare a bit of time as himself to be in the film. He’s not going to act though, just read the script as he is. Casey also has this boyfriend in the film who was such a bad actor I’m not going to bother to name drop. Why did he always look angry?

The little scary kid who Casey is babysitting has a really weird shaped head, as does Casey in the flashback to when she’s a little girl. I know this guy with such a shaped head. Heads.

Also produced by Michael Bay. Does that make you care? Didn't make me care.

When Casey asks the old woman why all this stuff is happening to her now and not years ago the old woman gives some unsatisfactory answer I can’t remember but let’s face it the real answer is because you look good now and if the story had you any younger all those promo posters with you in front of the mirror woulda just been creepy.

Casey stops to pick up a glove, in her dream and real life. How clean must her city be that the sight of a glove on the ground is so mind boggling that she has to pick it up and look at it?