"Spirit Trap" is a thoroughly boring and hardly-worthwhile ghost effort.
**SPOILERS**
Needing a home for rent, students Jenny, (Billie Piper) Tom, (Luke Mably) Adele, (Emma Catherwood) Nick, (Sam Troughton) and Tina, (Alsou) move into a huge London flat and meet up with each other, settling into their rooms. Going through the belongings left behind after getting acquainted, they find an old Quija Board and decide to give it a shot, which starts to upset some of them. As the night goes on, they all suddenly experience a series of strange events that are initially blamed on each other, but they soon realize that something may be inside the house with them, and after knowing there's a ghost involved in the proceedings, try to solve the mystery involving them and get out alive.
The Good News: There was very little that actually had anything worthwhile to it. The ending to the film is actually enjoyable, as there's the full revelation of the ghostly mystery with some nice action and the full explanation of everything comes off rather well and has some rather fun scenes to it. From the scenes of the psycho stalking them around the cavernous, impressive-looking and suitably creepy house, the race to fulfill the requirements for stopping the events from transpiring, these are all quite fun. As the different reactions of the past are inter-weaved with the regular action being rather fun as well. Overall, these scenes come off good and fun. The only other thing to work is that some of the different dream sequences are pretty creepy visually. Rather than simply trying to do a repeat of the action in the house, they're the only real indication something is wrong and it plays them for all it's worth, leading to some decent moments in the middle of the film. These issues are all the film has going for it.
The Bad News: This is a severely flawed effort. One of the biggest problems is that the film is just too dull and boring. This one has such a long amount of time where nothing at all happens, lasting nearly an hour before anything remotely close to producing chills is even used, making for a viewing that lasts forever and ever before finally getting to the ghost action. That's not nearly bad enough, but the way it goes about filling up the useless time is where it makes sure to be boring, as the film decides that using up the time by doing absolutely nothing and have them walk around the house yelling at each other for their different methods, from their drug habits to past relationships to the demons plaguing them coming into the house, and this is exactly the opposite of what's needed to make these scenes feel exciting. None of them are all that interesting or exciting or even enjoyable, making the film a real chore to get through during these later segments when they come into the fore, making it seem like the ghost action in here almost an afterthought and barely in the film about it to begin with as it takes a back-seat to the rest of the film's subplots, which is a bad move all around. The other flaw to this is that the film has an incredibly convoluted plot that doesn't make much sense at all. The use of the clock has very little connection other than providing the resting spot for the clue to which it helps solve the mystery and the focus on it is a little hard to understand, the flashbacks to the past are so unnecessary they could've been dropped and nothing would've been missed and it has a huge flaw dealing around the finale, which is entirely too big to ruin here, but there is a rather big one along with the other flaws on display, leaving this one to be entirely disappointing.
The Final Verdict: Dull, boring and uneventful sum up this one quite nicely, leaving little room for the few good spots to emerge. Really only see this if you prefer you're horror meshed with a side of drama, though those looking for some generally more adrenaline-soaked fare or aren't fans of those kinds should ignore altogether.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, drug use, Brief Nudity and a mild sex scene
**SPOILERS**
Needing a home for rent, students Jenny, (Billie Piper) Tom, (Luke Mably) Adele, (Emma Catherwood) Nick, (Sam Troughton) and Tina, (Alsou) move into a huge London flat and meet up with each other, settling into their rooms. Going through the belongings left behind after getting acquainted, they find an old Quija Board and decide to give it a shot, which starts to upset some of them. As the night goes on, they all suddenly experience a series of strange events that are initially blamed on each other, but they soon realize that something may be inside the house with them, and after knowing there's a ghost involved in the proceedings, try to solve the mystery involving them and get out alive.
The Good News: There was very little that actually had anything worthwhile to it. The ending to the film is actually enjoyable, as there's the full revelation of the ghostly mystery with some nice action and the full explanation of everything comes off rather well and has some rather fun scenes to it. From the scenes of the psycho stalking them around the cavernous, impressive-looking and suitably creepy house, the race to fulfill the requirements for stopping the events from transpiring, these are all quite fun. As the different reactions of the past are inter-weaved with the regular action being rather fun as well. Overall, these scenes come off good and fun. The only other thing to work is that some of the different dream sequences are pretty creepy visually. Rather than simply trying to do a repeat of the action in the house, they're the only real indication something is wrong and it plays them for all it's worth, leading to some decent moments in the middle of the film. These issues are all the film has going for it.
The Bad News: This is a severely flawed effort. One of the biggest problems is that the film is just too dull and boring. This one has such a long amount of time where nothing at all happens, lasting nearly an hour before anything remotely close to producing chills is even used, making for a viewing that lasts forever and ever before finally getting to the ghost action. That's not nearly bad enough, but the way it goes about filling up the useless time is where it makes sure to be boring, as the film decides that using up the time by doing absolutely nothing and have them walk around the house yelling at each other for their different methods, from their drug habits to past relationships to the demons plaguing them coming into the house, and this is exactly the opposite of what's needed to make these scenes feel exciting. None of them are all that interesting or exciting or even enjoyable, making the film a real chore to get through during these later segments when they come into the fore, making it seem like the ghost action in here almost an afterthought and barely in the film about it to begin with as it takes a back-seat to the rest of the film's subplots, which is a bad move all around. The other flaw to this is that the film has an incredibly convoluted plot that doesn't make much sense at all. The use of the clock has very little connection other than providing the resting spot for the clue to which it helps solve the mystery and the focus on it is a little hard to understand, the flashbacks to the past are so unnecessary they could've been dropped and nothing would've been missed and it has a huge flaw dealing around the finale, which is entirely too big to ruin here, but there is a rather big one along with the other flaws on display, leaving this one to be entirely disappointing.
The Final Verdict: Dull, boring and uneventful sum up this one quite nicely, leaving little room for the few good spots to emerge. Really only see this if you prefer you're horror meshed with a side of drama, though those looking for some generally more adrenaline-soaked fare or aren't fans of those kinds should ignore altogether.
Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, drug use, Brief Nudity and a mild sex scene