The Remains (2016)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Good movie but grossly overrated

Admirable film.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

This is a very generic, cliche horror movie. Something bad happens in a house. Many years later, a family who is grief stricken and dealing with a tragedy comes across the house on the market. It's a steal of a deal so they move in; shortly after moving in, the family begins to experience paranormal occurrences.The acting leaves a lot to be desired and the storyline feels like every haunted house themed horror movie from the last few decades. The scares are primarily jump scares which come across as predictable and stale. Not the worst movie ever but definitely not great.

There was really no backstory to the haunting. At the beginning of the movie we see a seance gone wrong, but it flimsily just makes it that the medium dies and is now the evil spirit killing everyone in the seance. No backstory on the spirit itself, just a quick how do you do and off to the sad family with bratty kids and clueless father. Then we get a mediocre build up that just kind of stumbles along and an ending that seemed like it was done with the motivation that 'well, the movie has to end so let's do this.'

The Remains - 2016Before I start, I am forewarning you for spoilers. Only minor ones, but I don't want to ruin the film for anyone wishing to watch it. Although it would be a mistake to.The film follows a family of 4 who are moving into a new house after the recent passing of the protagonist's, John's, wife. The film begins with short scene to set the background and foreshadow certain items for later on. Once this is over we see the family on the way to view the property. Two young weird children, an ignorant teen with a secret boyfriend, whose existence adds nothing to the plot, and a paranoid father. They arrive at the house, meet the agent selling it and then move in pretty much instantly. None of the kids are happy about it, the family have no idea of the buildings background and to round it all up, the acting makes you cringe. And we aren't even 20 minutes in. A few more scenes follow containing strange happenings and more bad acting before eventually the two younger kids venture into the attic and find a wooden box full of mysterious items; which you will remember from the first scene of the film if you hadn't thrown the disc away by this point. The girl becomes attached to the doll found in the box and then everything become "freaky". The acting begins to quickly get worse and the camera work is poorly executed. The lines delivered are weak and have terribly awkward silences between them.Skipping all the needless scenes between, the highlight of the film for me was when John dreams about beating his son's skull in with a baseball bat. Not because I was so sick of the kids acting and wanted to do it myself, but because it is the best acted scene in the entire movie. The look John gives whilst he's doing it genuinely makes him look like he's going mad, the fake blood used looked realistic (well done fx crew) and it just wasn't expected which I liked. It gave the film a moment when you though 'maybe the film will pick up after this great and slightly disturbing scene'. Spoiler alert.. I'm afraid not. More bad camera work, more pointless scenes, poor jump scares and the ending scene reminded me of a children's comedy on TV made to amuse 11 year old kids.Whoever wrote and directed the film was desperately trying to live up to the films James Wan has directed and written in the past. After watching the trailer, I was excited and had hope for it. But now I've been left disappointed and feel like my time has been wasted. The only reason this film should be watched is so drama students can learn how not to act so we may hope that no more let down horror and thriller films come out in the near future.The truth hurts. See you in the review section.

I've just watched this film and I've got to say, what a waste of 85 minutes it was! The beginning was compelling and it looked like it had great potential, but that's as far as it went! I agree with other reviewers about the acting, it was just awful! **** Spoiler Alert**** I honestly thought, the point of the mum being dead in the film would lead to her saving them at the end, but no, the film didn't go anywhere. There was no real story line and nothing was explained, to say it was weak is an understatement. There's the usual clichéd features, copied from other horror films, yawn, yawn! And the ending was just cheesy. Save yourself money and more importantly time, and see something much more worthy.