This movie represents everything a horror / terror film should aspire and should not.
First off, let us talk about what a horror film should aspire to. This film has astonishing cinematography and production design. The scenes in the woods are perfect for the genre. Creepy, gray, cold, mysteriously. Something similar to what the Netflix Series Dark does. And this aspect is what most horror films lack. A perfect environment to set up a scary story. A perfect production design to scare people off simply by looking at it. That's what this film is so good at, and what every horror film should aspire to.
Now, let us talk about what a horror film should not aspire to. A perfect cinematography and a perfect production design, as described above, does not imply a perfect story. And that is where this movie falls off. The story starts promising, a good scenario in which kids disappear out of a sudden. And the film builds this story quite good at the begging. But then; way too much mysticism. The story reaches a point where it becomes cliché, and it stops scaring. And it stops scaring because it is simply too surreal. It goes out of boundaries in the surreal matter. And instead of producing terror, it produces laughter. Also, stories that involve "duplicates", which means, two copies of the same person: one is demonic and the other is not, are hard to develop. If you constantly use it, it will become boring. The movie-goer does not care about a horror film character, and if you create several personas of the same character, then in becomes quite boring and cliché. That is why the ending is horrible. An unnecessary cliff-hanger. An unnecessary cliché. An unnecessary "duplicate".
First off, let us talk about what a horror film should aspire to. This film has astonishing cinematography and production design. The scenes in the woods are perfect for the genre. Creepy, gray, cold, mysteriously. Something similar to what the Netflix Series Dark does. And this aspect is what most horror films lack. A perfect environment to set up a scary story. A perfect production design to scare people off simply by looking at it. That's what this film is so good at, and what every horror film should aspire to.
Now, let us talk about what a horror film should not aspire to. A perfect cinematography and a perfect production design, as described above, does not imply a perfect story. And that is where this movie falls off. The story starts promising, a good scenario in which kids disappear out of a sudden. And the film builds this story quite good at the begging. But then; way too much mysticism. The story reaches a point where it becomes cliché, and it stops scaring. And it stops scaring because it is simply too surreal. It goes out of boundaries in the surreal matter. And instead of producing terror, it produces laughter. Also, stories that involve "duplicates", which means, two copies of the same person: one is demonic and the other is not, are hard to develop. If you constantly use it, it will become boring. The movie-goer does not care about a horror film character, and if you create several personas of the same character, then in becomes quite boring and cliché. That is why the ending is horrible. An unnecessary cliff-hanger. An unnecessary cliché. An unnecessary "duplicate".