This is almost entirely unexceptional, yet never incompetent - it certainly gives no reason to imagine that it would generate eleven sequels (at last count!). After giving birth to her son, a woman (Barzilai) goes for a break at her mother-in-law's house, but endures an increasingly odd series of events, suggesting her husband and his mother are somehow linked to a Satanic couple, one pregnant, burned at the stake in 1667. The local priest commits suicide outside her window; she sees visions in a mirror; and the family's mute butler bars her every time she tries to go into certain parts of the house.
Despite a severe lack of surprises, there's not much you can specifically point at in the way of failings - it's simply strikingly mediocre, in the strictest sense of the word. I think the script is probably the weakest link - the baby (very clearly, not a newborn!) seems like the key, but vanishes in the final third, as does the butler. However, the latter suddenly reappears to play a key role in the climax and does supply the film's most notable death, an impressive impaling. There's also one neat moment, after the husband tells his wife they can't go home because their own house burned down, where things don't unfold as you expect. Otherwise, it's a far cry from the cheery exploito-horror with which I'm familiar; my fault for starting at the end of the series, I guess!
D+
July 2004
