Kim Newman Quotes

A blatant patchwork of every haunted house movie ever made, it still delivers a creep-out (the midget dancing to Tiny Tim), a face-at-the-window shock or a well-crafted scare (it’s behind you!) every few minutes. Not especially well acted and weighed down by silliness, but consistently scary. It hasn’t got more to offer than cheap chills, but sometimes that’s enough.

Otherwise, it’s brilliantly constructed, going over an eight-minute cycle again and again with variations, each time advancing the plot — it may be that stories like these were inconceivable before choose-your-own-adventure books or computer games — but also bringing out the tragedy of a doom we are told is inescapable as the time-hopper makes different, deepening connections with the girl sitting next to him.