Pretty ... not bad at all (spoilers)

Everyone says this is bad, but (in my view) it's actually quite fun as long as you take it for what it is - a teens-in-trouble horrorfest that has plenty of skin (male and female) and the usual teen phobia about losing all your friends and not fitting in.

I was surprised that the downbeat ending got past the studio executives, so kudos to the director. I was waiting for it all to sort itself out, for everything to turn out okay, but it kept right on to the rather merciless end.

Also, the directing is actually pretty good. Yes, there are some silly moments (why walk towards creepy roadside noises in the middle of nowhere?), but there were also many effective and stylish scenes that managed to get past the genre.

All the partying annoyed me for the first 30 mins or so, but as the story progressed, I could see the point of it - the disappearances wouldn't have been so effective if the friendships had been glossed over; so again, good one.

The ghost effects were standard, but worked well enough, with some sense of real choreography in the moves (I could almost imagine they were dancers), without being too self-consciously arty.

I think Tyler Oliver might well be a director to watch out for (interesting to see that most of his work has been in cinematography). I think he took a pretty standard idea, sold it to the studio, and managed to do something interesting with it.

All in all, not a bad movie.

(Though, yeah, the pussy on hand joke was pretty bad.)