CinemaSerf (November 2, 2023)

Well we've had Mandarin and Spanish integrated into dual-dialogue Hollywood films recently, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before another language featured - and we have it here in the partial use of Hindi. Thereafter, though, this is an entirely unremarkable drama centring around the young "Sam" (Megan Suri) who is trying to balance her life of traditional roots and modern American attitudes. This confusion and uncertainty, coupled with a recently smashed jam jar is allowing a strange and powerfully malevolent critter to come out and thrive on all of this discord - and to kidnap her best mate "Tam" (Mohana Krishnan) - the original owner of the jar! Can "Sam" and her all-American beau "Russ" (Gage Marsh) possibly get to the bottom of it all? As surely as we will all soon be leaving the cinema - and that's really the problem here. There is nothing at all new, nothing scary - the visual effects; darkened streets, flickering lightbulbs - we've all seen it so often before and though the Indian cultural aspect is welcome, it doesn't really add anywhere near enough to this teenage adequately performed finding-herself story that rather bored me. Halloween telly if ever I saw it, I wouldn't bother paying to see it at a cinema, sorry.