The Banishing

If you like a slow, historical ghost story, you'll like this one. The plot is fairly predictable and many of the old haunted house tropes are here. But the score is great, the acting well done, the atmosphere effectively eerie, and it offers up a few creepy scares.

This is so underrated. People expecting the typical horror movie are not going to comprehend the nuances and atmosphere that make this movie great. It's slow build up of tension is enjoyable and pervasive. The acting is solid - I think Sean Harris is an amazing actor and although the storyline flops a bit, I still found it enjoyable.

This film start with a priest reading the Bible, and the phone ringing scene! As turnout, this film is about a ghost woman need to take revenge on a married couple's daughter "Adelaide" by taken her! Entire film full of boring conversation, and super annoying overuse scene! Such as, overuse of the phone ringing scene, overuse of the walking scene, overuse of the driving scene, overuse of the searching scene, overuse of the using torch light scene, overuse of the reading Bible scene, overuse of the dim off the candle light scene, overuse of the eating scene, overuse of the drinking scene, overuse of the smoking scene, overuse of the calling names scene, overuse of the staring scene, overuse of the arguing scene, overuse of the hallucinate scene, and overuse of the blackout scene! Make the film unwatchable! At the end, after buried the human bone, Marianne watching her husband preaching! That's it! Completely wasting time to watch!

I love Smith's other 6 features, but this one....not so much. It is a slow burn, and that I have no problem with. Trouble is, it really doesn't go anywhere. The cast tries, but the script is lacking on multiple fronts. It doesn't help that Smith's trademark pitch black humor - which somehow even showed up in moments of Black Death - is totally absent here. It almost seems like he knew this was hopeless and put in minimal effort. If not for seeing "Directed by Christopher Smith" in the credits, it could have been made by literally anyone. Very disappointing to see a director with so much ability just phoning it in. Hopefully this is just an aberration.

Watch it! It deserve sooo much better ratings than 4,5! I'm a horror fan and have watched ALL the good horror movies so that's why I try the ones with less good ratings than 6. I don't understand the bad ratings. This is a well made, tense and thoughtful movie. Intriguing. The acting was also very good. My personal opinion about people who call it boring just don't see the psychological deeper meaning about this movie, which I find is important to remind oneself about these days.

A vicar and his wife and her child are sent to a failing parish, but the vicarage holds a ghastly secret. Decent performances, the standout being the occultist, who has a certain look and intensity that suited the part - although I had trouble catching some of his lines. Otherwise, the sound design is good, with effective music, and the cinematography makes the most of an old location and does justice to the director's flair for mirror trickery and surreal images. But the screenplay is an absolute mess. This is supposed to be a story of righting a historical wrong, of laying a ghost to rest - think Ringu for pure simplicity with clever story telling ... and then run a mile from this. It's burdened with a preposterous fascist subplot, but also has the cheek to open with a scene that is never integrated into the main plot yet is far more gruesome than anything that comes after, then intrigues with a tango scene - again, pointless - before stabbing away at some blaaah about illegitimate child bearing, before resolving on a completely under-powered encounter at the end. All sorts of themes are tossed in, with an unserious take on religion, resulting in a lack of drive or coherence. Because of this, nothing can really work, and the whole thing is drained of frights. How do actors, and the director and cinematographer, find the will to go on with this kind of material? Beats me.

What a tremendous disappointment! I just wanted to enjoy a creepy, atmospheric horror film but this one is so tedious I had to wrap up watching after 1 hour because I almost fell asleep. I know the director's earlier works and he always seemed talented, well, not anymore. If a horror movie is boring as hell, I think that's unforgivable. If I can give you an advice, just skip this garbage.

I am so disappointed. I thought this was going to be strongly based on that real life legend that surrounds Borley Rectory. And so I jumped through endless hoops to sign up to the Shudder App. And all for what? A very wishy washy plot, slow scenes that dragged on, and scare gags that were just plain dumb. The supporting characters came and went from the story in jerky, choppy fashion, and their relevance to the storyline was patchy. The storyline felt like it had holes in it. It was sad to see the character of Marianne having such strained relationships with her husband and daughter, but it would have been fine if they were resolved beautifully in the end. But they weren't. I was hoping for a romantic love scene of husband and wife reconciled within their marriage. But nope. Nothing like that.