The Quiet Ones

John Pogue – 2014 – England

Another in a long series of slick movies about the paranormal; most them claiming to be “true stories.”  I’ve carried on elsewhere about how these films are effective because of their dependence on cheap scares but ultimately lack any originality, so I’ll try to not repeat myself here.  There’s no doubt there is a huge market for movies like this, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many, but with that in mind, why has no one come along to try and raise the genre above the routine, as John Ford did with westerns or Chang Cheh with martial arts films?  The Quiet Ones has minor advantages in its British 1970s milieu and a lead performance by a quality actor; Jared Harris.  Other than that, there’s not one thing in the film you haven’t seen a great many times.  For what it’s worth, the film does have an awesome poster, though…