vinnycenzo’s review published on Letterboxd:
While it didn't fully work for me, I can enjoy this movie enough and see why it was so successful when it was initially released. It has an entirely fresh and unique concept, it's filled with a ton of solid tension building, and the threat here is one that you remember, which makes for some effective scares that stick with you. It has everything you want from this sort of mainstream studio horror film, while also avoiding a lot of the mistakes that you tend to see in movies like this. In general, I think it works for what it's going for, and I can understand why there was so much buzz surrounding it when it first came out, but it didn't impact me as much as it did others. Don't get me wrong, some of the scares here got me, and I watched it with friends which automatically made the experience more memorable and entertaining, but outside of that, nothing here is really going to stick with me. I think the biggest issue here is the runtime, it just throws in too much and goes on for too long, so while there are moments that can be intriguing or scary, there's also a lot of filler. I felt like there was a lot here that could have been cut out to both make the film as a whole more intense, and explore its themes about mental health and trauma more effectively. Overall, this can be a fun time if you watch it with the right people, but on its own I don't think it's anything outstanding. It has its moments, and modern studio horror gets much worse than this, but it's also been much better.