What I thought I was watching when I saw this movie was an effort at a case study of an unhappy adolescent girl in a dingy Scottish slum, whose unhappiness is accompanied by a spate of poltergeist activity, perhaps caused by her, but not by a ghost as usually understood, and presented as a secondary aspect of her general condition rather than as the point of interest in itself. That seemed an unusual approach, but I found it hindered by the casting of the main actress, who is remarkably inexpressive even for a surly adolescent; by distracting effects and music; and by the script, which is constructed so as to hold back rather than reveal key information about the character, and which, rather than limiting itself to her, the people around her, and the events that would be likely to happen in the circumstances, ropes in several not very credible characters who mainly get in the way of the main subject. Though the movie was not very scary, its attitude, more than its eye, and its location (as I thought, but this turned out to have been a well-designed set), more than imaginativeness in its use, drew me in and carried me along. But I wish it had taken me farther, faster.
In the commentary on the DVD, the producer and co-writer explains that the film was not intended as the character study I had supposed but as a "real" (as opposed to a Hollywood) ghost story, dictating the urban setting (and the prosaic title), and was intended to capture the effect of sitting in a haunted house for hours without hearing anything and then hearing a small sound. Thing is, though, this effect has been a staple of horror movies since the coming of sound, it has been done more effectively in many; also, most ghost movies I have seen recently have had urban settings. The filmmakers have talent, but in my opinion their film would have gained if they had viewed, or imagined, a little more widely (their favorite movies are "Aliens," "Star Wars," "Die Hard," and "Back to the Future"), written a little more to the purpose--and done what I had thought they were doing.
In the commentary on the DVD, the producer and co-writer explains that the film was not intended as the character study I had supposed but as a "real" (as opposed to a Hollywood) ghost story, dictating the urban setting (and the prosaic title), and was intended to capture the effect of sitting in a haunted house for hours without hearing anything and then hearing a small sound. Thing is, though, this effect has been a staple of horror movies since the coming of sound, it has been done more effectively in many; also, most ghost movies I have seen recently have had urban settings. The filmmakers have talent, but in my opinion their film would have gained if they had viewed, or imagined, a little more widely (their favorite movies are "Aliens," "Star Wars," "Die Hard," and "Back to the Future"), written a little more to the purpose--and done what I had thought they were doing.