I liked this movie except....

Great movie and had some genuinely good scares. Only problem was the acting. Some of it was great (Julian Sands held his own). But Nancy Travis, Matt Keeslar, David Dukes (may he RIP) and Matt Ross put in some pretty poor performances. Matt Ross' character in particular was so obnoxious that I almost wanted to turn it off at times. He was beyond an archetypal nerd - it was just way way over the top and laughable. I'm surprised because he is normally a solid actor but his performance in this movie was pathetic. The woman who played his mother was also equally ridiculous - I've never been so happy when a movie character has been killed before. David Dukes was also way over the top as a stereotypical snobby professor type.

A solid film, but I'm just unsure why so many normally good actors put in very sub-par performances. If you see these actors in other movies they always do a great job (Matt Ross was brilliant in The Aviator, American Psycho, etc.) but in this movie it was like they just did everything in one take and were told to act like they had never been to acting school. Not saying I don't like the film, but it could've been a 8 or 9 with some decent acting.