The Accursed

It kicks off with a terrific opening scene, but that promise is soon dashed as this horror movie rolls out dull characters and predictable plot turns. Ultimately it winds up feeling overly familiar and half-hearted. The first line in The Accursed is "don't come inside until the screaming starts," and the sequence that follows is killer, with Mary Lynn facing off with the gravelly voiced witch in a creepy room filled with horrific wonders. The scene ends with Sadie holding up a freshly bitten-off demon finger. It's fully satisfying, but disappointment kicks in quickly after the "three months later" title card, with Mary Lynn and Sadie nowhere to be seen. Instead, we get the sad, passive Elly, who feels guilty about not being there for her mom and makes not-very-bright decisions.

Perhaps even worse is Beth, the typical smart-alecky best friend character whose entire life is devoted to doing things for Elly. The story depends on Elly wandering dumbly into danger, but it's hard to feel much sympathy for her, especially when the warning signs are all there. Certain secrets are meant to be saved for surprise "twists," but they're frankly not very surprising. Other things are just lazily unexplained or disregarded. Everything goes through the motions as we wait for the inevitable, punctuated only by a scene in which Mary Lynn and Sadie reappear. It's a small, short jolt of energy for The Accursed, and it's enough to make us wish that the entire movie had been about those two (who are played by a real-life mother-daughter duo) instead.