Peter Loch Dutch film industry isn't big...good actors are hard to find. Good scriptwriters apparently are even harder to find. Every single cliché that has been used in dozens of horror films you be sure to find is this one too !!! A book is found with spells and so...hey...haven't I seen this before...? Well...I won't "spoil" any more "viewing-pleasures". Better yet Don't watch it. It's a complete waste of time. Why give it 2 stars you ask? Mmmm...another Dutch production...SL8N8 (Butchers Night) ...is even worse. So that's my 1 star movie. If you haven't watched either: BE WARNED...and DON'T watch !!! It's not an A lister, not even a B lister. Nope...I would rather say it's a N lister, N like in NO !!!

teunpel When I first heard the Netherlands was going to make a scary movie I got really exited. It took a while before the website was launched and the trailer was released. The trailer looked really professional so I was really looking forward to it. The film poster did not look cheap like those of most Dutch movies but looked like it could have been from the States. With a low budget the filmmakers managed to make a scary movie which is no worse than its American or Asian equivalent.The quality of the movie is good enough to be released in the rest of Europe. Though there is room for improvement, the special make-up, visual effects, sets, music and sound effects are really great and demonstrates the talent and capability of people to create a good movie. The tone of the music and storyline resembles the Asian style. Dark atmosphere and colors and an evil cursed house with a dark history. The image quality etc. looks like the American style horror movie with one main difference. In the typical American scary movie the black people and blond girls die first. We also know from minute one who is gonna live. This movie completely breaks away from it (the blond girl and black guy are the last remaining. The movie is shot with HD camera's and special effects such as green screen are used effectively.Unlike the Asian horror style it does not have a huge plot twist at the end or many disturbing things in it. There are multiple threats and the seven friends must uncover the dark history of the house before it kills them all. The background story is not very simple and maybe to hard to understand. Even though the story is not most original (a cursed and haunted house, good friends on holiday, etc), and it closely resembles the American and Asian style, it's still good. I don't understand why people don't like it just because it looks like the conventional American and Asian thing, that's a good thing, right? This means it is of the same quality as two great movie industries and is appealing to a large public.Another discussion is the title. All Dutch people seem to have the preconceived idea that a scary movie can only have a good title if the title is English. I do not agree. Scream, Halloween Resurrection, Final Destination, The Ring etc. Dutch people think they sound scary but it's not like the title has the same impact on native speakers. Does De Laatste Bestemming or De Kring sound scary to you? Of course not! A horror title does not have to make you pee your pants from fear it just has to sound dark.The movie starts of with a blast. A women in despair in a burning house screaming for her baby and burning to death. We meet the main characters in very short amount of time. It would be better if we would have got to know them a bit better so we would have more sympathy for them. Maybe it was a budgetary problem. It does not really become clear the friends want to go climbing in the Scottish mountains either because we don't hear them talking about it or preparing for it. The old friends sit around a fire and are attacked by dogs. They try to drive away from them but hit a tree. The car chase was a good thing but it went to fast and the camera movements were to wild. The first half hour is scary but the sense of the intensity of the situation does not come through. Only when the first person dies and people are burned by an evil burning panic starts to spread.A great job done by the actors who are truly shocked by the situation and cry, tremble, scream etc. Every actor does a great job although not all of them have any depth. My compliments to Anniek, Victoria, Mads and Everon for their great acting. They convincingly portrayed the people and the fear and shock of it all. The cursed and haunted house is truly scary and the music carriers the movie. There are several really scary moments such as the encounters with Mary McBane, the closet, the visions and other moments. Vulgus, the demon child was really creepy and he moved in an odd way. I feel the movie would have been way more uncomfortable if we would have seen more of him. The dialogs are not fantastic but this does not disturb the movie.The house is really old and creepy and contains jars with fetuses, old paintings, a laundry room etc. As the movie gets along the dark history is uncovered and more people die. The movie builds up to a nice climax with great music, visual effects, acting and a great shock. The movie truly is a scary movie with shocking moments, scary settings, music and contains gross and heavy moments. The only thing I wonder about is why the story was set in Scotland and not in The Netherlands. We have had witch trials too.It is unfair people refuse to see this movie just because it is Dutch. The Dutch are so accustomed to be negative about their own product and so positive about anything that is not Dutch. It is just weird. We should be a little more positive and proud of the movies and artists who are good and at least give them a shot. I really advice everyone to at least watch it once and judge for yourself. I hope the Netherlands will start making more genre movies not just comedies and book adaptations. Maybe a good action thriller? If only more money could be spend on making movies, the quality would improve greatly because there is plenty of talent.

Tridentmovies Oh boy, what to say about this.Holland doesn't have a horror culture, and if this movie is any indication, it probably never will have one.Let me get the good stuff out of the way: technically, the movie is adequate, with some good cinematography, decent music and (for Dutch standards) pretty decent effects.But then we have to start judging the movie on its actual content and what impression that leaves. Which left me wholly underwhelmed (and i'm being kind). To summarize all the aspects: the acting ranges from decent to downright laughable (depending on the actors and on the emotion they were intended to express); the story (what little of it there is) ends up amounting to absolutely nothing the least bit interesting; the movie CRAWLED along, with most of it spent making characters sneak through dark corridors and rooms with flashlights where most of the times nothing ends up happening; the movie is repetitive in the extreme (scene: people rest in room - smoldering fire invades wood around them - people try to escape room - repeat ad nauseum); whenever something happens it is the usual annoying shocks of the "BOO" type with quick cut editing; we have characters that make NO impression whatsoever, and included a main protagonist who spent most of his time crying or making hilarious faces (supposedly representing a mix of shock , rage or crying, or all at the same time).Put it this way, whatever tension the makers managed to build up initially went down the toilet when this viewer started quickly realizing that NOTHING scary (or gory) was going to happen. You can only have people creeping down corridors with flashlights for so long without payoff before i stop giving a hoot and thinking about turning the DVD off (which i didn't because i wanted to see if it improved).I have to compliment the guys making the film for the technical proficiency and meaning well, but it seems as if they really thought that throwing ingredients from "Blair Witch Project", "Silent Hill" and "House on Haunted Hill (remake)" into a pot and cooking it, automatically meant the result would be a great tasting horror soup. This soup fell completely flat and tasted like nothing.Sorry guys. You undoubtedly love horror, but loving it is different from being able to make it and doing a good job.On a side note: some Dutch reviewers (see "reviews" on left side of IMDb page) have given the movie props for being a successful attempt. These people are obviously a bit too chauvinistic about Dutch "product" and need to regain their objectivity. You're not going to do horror's future in Holland any good by praising this movie if it really sucks. And those that think it really was good, ah well...

Terence I saw this film on the first day it was released. I was glad it finally came, it would have been earlier. I had bad expectations, but as a Dutch horror fan and maker, I hoped it wouldn't be that bad.But no matter how low my expectations were, the film was worse. It starts with the screenplay. Barely a story (the first half hour is mainly slowly walking through hallways with flashlights), uninteresting characters (you don't care if they live or die), and awful dialog. For no reason this story takes place in Scotland. Which leads to a Dutch actress talking half Englisch/ half what's-supposed-to-be Scottisch. Very funny, not intended to be.Every horror scene is just one familiar from other American/Japanese films, badly imitated. The only things that are okay for Dutch standards are the score and the visual effects (not all of them). But this does not a good movie make!I find it common sense that the makers had to search far and wide for investors, since this is obviously a piece of crap. And then comes the news that Tarantino's company is interested in making a remake. I'm sorry, but we can do much much better than this, when it comes to Dutch horror. Do NOT let this be the representative film for Dutch horror in the new millennium.