Not all is what it seems...
N. Jones | Michigan | 05/13/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"First off, the box art is rather deceiving. Despite what is shown on the cover, there are no girls in pigtails wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform going on a murderous rampage with a hammer (That's what I thought when I picked it up to rent from a local Blockbuster). It doesn't take place anywhere near an attic, and really no reason why the toybox is bloody. So that's out of the way...
The story is really about a girl, Berenice (Claudine Spiteri), and her boyfriend Conrad (Craig Henderson), coming home from college to spend Christmas with her family in the English countryside. The family consists of a doting (and kinda mentally "out there") grandmother, a mother who flirts with any man near her, a father preoccupied with telling bad jokes and defending his family from what he believes to be a stalker, and a sullen and moody younger brother (Elliot Jordan). Throughout the film, the girl and her brother reveal that when they were kids, they liked to imagine that they were living in a local myth about witches and a vicious murdering clown (Why does it always have to be clowns?). Little do they know, that the myth is becoming reality. (Ooooooh, creepy)
The movie has some pretty good performances, but the story drags on from time to time. There are some times where the director does a real good job with ratcheting up the tension in some scenes where it's impossible to look away from the screen, especially towards the end when the villain (don't want to reveal too much) finally shows up and goes on a murderous spree. The production design, though, tends to look plain and make the movie seem more boring.
Special features include:
Four movie trailers- The Brink (Looks like a cross between The Evil Dead and Signs), A Mexican Werewolf in Texas (Actually a film about the Chupacabra), Death Clique (Bunch of teens in a house with a killer, that's all), and Tears of Kali: The Dark Side of New Age (I have no idea what happened, but I think it's German)
A commentary by the director Paolo Sedazzari, producer Simon Mason, Henderson, and 2nd unit director, Pete Clapton."