The Place For The Latest Movie Reviews
Cast: Kevin Costner, Ivana Baquero, Gattlin Griffith, Samantha Mathis, Noah Taylor
John, a newly divorced father who moves into a rural South Carolina home with his adolescent daughter Louisa and young son Sam. But when Louisa begins to behave in a bizarre and increasingly violent manner, John must uncover the truth behind her transformation. Is the former owner s shocking secret to blame? And how far will a father go to protect his daughter from an ancient evil determined to take her over?
As a fan of Kevin Costner I was looking forward to sitting down to this one but I remained cautious due to the fact that this only had a limited theatrical release last December. The story opens as John and his two children are moving into their new home, the little boy goes along with the idea of starting over since his mom divorced his father but his teenage daughter is a bit more angry and confused over the whole ordeal and after a girl in her new school starts picking on her it becomes that much harder. One day the two kids decide to go explore their new surroundings and they stumble onto a mound that the girl seems to be drawn to right away but when she begins acting strangely John starts to do some research on the house and why the last owner just took off and left her daughter behind, what he finds is something more horrific than he could of ever imagined. This is a pretty straight forward Supernatural Thriller and I think the less you know about the story the better and what I already said about it is enough because anymore details will spoil the film from all of you waiting to see it. The cast is terrific, Kevin Costner is great as the father who is willing to do whatever it takes to save his family and Samantha Mathis is very good as the school teacher who feels for John as he struggles to start a new life with his children and is willing to do anything to help him out. You get a sense that John and Cassandra are on their way to maybe having a relationship but the problems that loom never allow it to fully develop. Ivana Baquero and Gattlin Griffith are also very good in the film as the two children and Ivana really does a terrific job playing the role of the daughter, she is able to play a confused, angry and at times creepy girl with ease, I was very impressed with this young girl and I see a bright future for her in films. Like most films today this doesn't offer anything really new or original but that doesn't make it any less entertaining. The film slowly builds on suspense and it also provides a few good "jump" scares as well as providing some very creepy atmosphere as well. Certain parts of the film reminded me of "The Descent", again I am not going to go into details on all of it but the film does a good job at creating the creepy mood it needed to be successful. I also really liked the non-Hollywood ending where everything is happy, a bold move by the film-makers but it works well here. When the credits began to roll I was left scratching my head, not because I was confused by the film but by the fact that this never got a wide release in theaters. Listen, this isn't going to change your life or inspire you in any way but with all the bad films they release in theaters anymore watching The New daughter was a breath of fresh air to me. It's not perfect by any means but it does what it sets out to do very well providing nice suspense, scares and a story that slowly draws you in and never lets you go till the very end. I suspect this to do very well when it is released to DVD on May 18th from strong word of mouth, if you are a fan of horror in general I highly recommend owning this, I was taken in by the film from it's opening frames and couldn't turn it off if I wanted to, it will have you hanging on to the edge of your seat, a creepy supernatural thriller that delivers. The DVD and BLU-ray will come with plenty of Special Features that will include deleted scenes, a Making Of and the theatrical trailer as well.
Released by Anchor Bay Entertainment
**** Out Of *****