Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

youngcountry84 There have been times that I've read reviews on here and disagreed with them. I don't know if it's because I have a different taste in movies- or maybe it's because I don't critique every aspect of the film. I don't really like it, but sometimes I have to skim through the spoilers to see if I want to watch the movie and this time, I didn't do that. I WISH I WOULD HAVE! (Don't forget, there's spoilers ahead!) The beginning wasn't bad. I mean, in any movie, things usually begin pretty slow. The family is introduced, blah, blah. But this movie smacks you in the face a few minutes in & I liked that- it's different. Then the family is introduced with all their baggage. Ali Larter plays Madison, the Mom. I like Ali, she's a good actress but matter how good she is, she couldn't make Madison look any less stupid! It's NOT rocket science. If you think your house is haunted, YOU MOVE!! IF, for some reason you can't get out of the house right away, you keep your kids with you at all times! It started to remind me of Lori and Carl on The Walking Dead! Jacob has a bad temper- which we end up seeing more than we even realize. Little Haley is freakin adorable! After a while, the story takes a sharp left turn and never finds its way back onto the road and it ends up being a pretty bumpy ride! The story was a good idea and it could've been really good if it was done the right way. But it wasn't. It left sooooo many unanswered questions! The ending was terrible. Does it mean that she'll be ok?! I'm so confused!! Maybe I just didn't get it, maybe you will. I'm just not sure you want to take that chance though, it's 2 hours of your life that you can't get back!

David Arnold This film is exactly like it's title....diabolical. That may be unoriginal but it's a very apt way to start this review.This is another classic example of why you shouldn't take movie trailers at face value because as soon as I saw them I wanted to see this film. It looked like a really decent, creepy film and when I saw such low ratings everywhere I couldn't understand why. After seeing the film, I do now and unfortunately it's just the exact opposite of what the trailers make it out to be.Amazing how the studios can fool you with a 2 minute trailer isn't it? The Diabolical is VERY slow and sometimes I don't mind that in certain movies as long as the story gets your interest and KEEPS your interest. However, this is not only very slow but it is extremely dull to boot mainly because of the boring story. Actually, scrap that. The overall story isn't that boring...it's the execution of it that makes it boring and for a supposed Thriller there's not very much thrills here at all.I also feel that nothing is really explained properly at anytime throughout the film either. It just feels like it's been put together to allow the audience to come up with their own theories on what is happening. That works - sometimes - but definitely not in this case. It just poses too many questions and leaves them unanswered.Suspenseful? Nope. Mind-bending? More like confusing and mind-numbing. Chilling? MAYBE one or two scenes at the very most but nothing more.Honestly, if you're thinking about watching this film, I'd suggest you just give it a miss. You're not missing much if you choose not to see it and it will save you about an hour and twenty minutes of your life.

quincytheodore Diabolical is insanely dull. It portrays so many haunting stereotypes in alarmingly uninteresting ways. The focus on drama is appreciated, although it dawdles needlessly for half the runtime, and even then it falters with lackluster attempt in horror and poor design for the creature. At the end it tries to pull off a nifty twist, but unfortunately audience would already be disenchanted by the clumsy execution.An entity binds a single mother and her two children to a particular house. What follows is average haunting gimmick which other movies have done better. It often stays too long on certain scene or abruptly changes tone with several supporting characters, either ways it doesn't pay off in the slightest.Ali Larter as the mother does a decent job on creating some family drama, however the tired theme of single mother struggling grows old too fast. She faces mortgage issue, visits from social services and even bullied by strange entities. It becomes mundane later on, not to mention the other characters seem like extras without much personality and the things they do sometimes defy logic as they wander aimlessly.All of those flaws can be forgiven, as most horror tend to skimp on narrative, but The Diabolical is simply not frightening. Practical effect is poorly done and the special effect looks awfully fake. The design for creature might be decent for the first or second time it appears, but this is the case of not showing too much can be more effective, which doesn't help much since the movie can't set up any suspense regardless.The effort to create drama is decent, but it soon becomes repetitive and tedious, especially when the movie can't deliver any horror, thrill or even the slightest tension.

jumei-san This is the first review I'm writing since EVER because I really have to rectify all these bad ratings and reviews for this movie. First of all, the title is super misleading. This is not a ghost movie. It's more of a mix between horror and science fiction. This movie is nothing like the traditional ghost story, probably why most people are so disappointed. I've seen people reviewing this movie who turned it off after only half an hour screen time: BIG MISTAKE! The story starts to take shape after 45 minutes and it gets really interesting from there. Small details reveal the plot and even though not all is clear at the end, I understand that some people might not get it at all and just sign it off with a low rating.I have to admit that the plot feels a bit messy, you get dropped off in the middle of the story with creepy entities appearing and not knowing what has happened to the family beforehand. But give it a chance. You might be surprised. It is obviously not the best movie ever, but I appreciate that the makers tried something different. It's just a shame that the big audience will never like 'different' kind of movies. Many of my favorite movies have bad ratings on IMDb. Honestly, this movie is better than some blockbuster movies who appeared in the cinema. But I guess there is no arguing about matters of taste.And to people who say that the house is too expensive for a single mom: you probably mean 'too expensive for a unemployed single mom'. Because if not, you're being really sexist.