En la casa de al lado

A haunting in an Ikea catalogue, by which I’m not referring to the country of origin, but to the depth of the characters and the composition of the setting. The haunting itself isn't bad, but you've seen it all before and the only motivation I can see behind Danielsson and Mellander taking on such a hackneyed subject is to show that they have the technical chops to do it and Netflix or someone like them would reach out and they could see the world. However, if you hunger deeply for post-Insidious horror and enjoy sudden scream scares, you should seek professional help. (02.02.2022)

A mainstream horror film from Sweden in the style of Come Play. The story is classic and unremarkable: a family moves into a house where the son befriends a demon that lives there. The film is more or less just about three characters and takes place in the house most of the time. Stepmom Dilan Gwyn is beautiful and the demon's appearance alone is properly creepy, but it's a shame that he doesn't get more space until the last third, and nothing much interesting happens for more than half the film. It's skillfully shot, the atmosphere is pretty tense in places, the soundtrack is properly unpleasant, but the jump-scares don't really work, and there's no proper danger to anyone, which is also a minus. When will I finally see a ghost that starts killing people, so that it will earn the respect of the viewers? Fans of mainstream ghost stories won't waste their time with this, but those who have more under their belt won't get past the average. 6/10. (15.03.2021)

A fully standard and unsurprising ghost story about a family who gets in trouble after their child (typically, retarded or somehow traumatised) makes friends with an imaginary figure that is not quite imaginary. In the decade that has passed since Wan’s Insidious, we’ve probably had dozens of similar films and it’s quite boring already. That said, objectively speaking, this Swedish attempt has a solid execution and performances, and the monster in the end looks fine. That’s pretty much all that can be said about it, this is the kind of film you already know without watching it. (16.03.2021)