The House on Pine Street

An unsettled couple with a baby on the way move back from the city to the wife's hometown, but she dreads their new home while everyone else thinks she's crazy.

Dialogue heavy psychological ghost story with problems in script, direction, editing and pace. The stand out feature is the photography and framing of shots, where a lot of care and intelligence is on show from the start. The dialogue is often too much or just trite, and many scenes start too early or end too late, and some of the cut aways or inserts in the editing are pointless. There is a good house warming scene, lively and well observed, but that's about it.

The biggest problem is that the ghost story doesn't measure up to the psychological drama, with no drive to it - comparable to The Babadook - and the director's overuse of jump scares is feeble. And 111 mins? 20 too many.

The parts are well played, with the lead actress giving good close up and the mother and psychic showing their experience, but sometimes the actors struggled with the dialogue and the lack of motivation within the story.

The music is good but nothing outstanding.

Overall - frustrating to see so much quality serving a weak story.