With its haunted house and ghosts trapped in a cyclic dark past, 7 Below desperately wants to be Kubrick's The Shining. And who can blame it? Sadly, the result is worthless, never scary or exciting.
And very poorly written. It features an inordinate amount of scenes with people sitting in dark rooms and chatting the night away. Unless you have a knack for dialogues to rival Tarantino's, this is always a bad idea. Conversations should develop characters while ratcheting up the tension AND telling the story. People sitting around and blabbering about how afraid they are (or revealing their unhappy past) is not a scene - it's filler between a jump scare and another.
Compare with James Mangold's Identity, a movie with a similar scenario (and a comparably silly twist), which is however stylish and cinematic, always propelled towards the next set-piece, featuring crisp dialogue and active characters who are constantly doing something: searching for clues, escaping, organizing a defense against the mysterious threat, putting together the pieces of the puzzle. A passive character morosely waiting for something to happen (or for cheesy revelations to be tossed at him) is a recipe for boredom.
Ving Rhames and a drowsy Val Kilmer cash their checks, the latter for probably like two days on set.
3/10
And very poorly written. It features an inordinate amount of scenes with people sitting in dark rooms and chatting the night away. Unless you have a knack for dialogues to rival Tarantino's, this is always a bad idea. Conversations should develop characters while ratcheting up the tension AND telling the story. People sitting around and blabbering about how afraid they are (or revealing their unhappy past) is not a scene - it's filler between a jump scare and another.
Compare with James Mangold's Identity, a movie with a similar scenario (and a comparably silly twist), which is however stylish and cinematic, always propelled towards the next set-piece, featuring crisp dialogue and active characters who are constantly doing something: searching for clues, escaping, organizing a defense against the mysterious threat, putting together the pieces of the puzzle. A passive character morosely waiting for something to happen (or for cheesy revelations to be tossed at him) is a recipe for boredom.
Ving Rhames and a drowsy Val Kilmer cash their checks, the latter for probably like two days on set.
3/10