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Just got back from this - I had planned oin seeing ParaNorman, but I figured that would make it's money back easily, so I figured I'd try this British ghost story out.

On the good side: Rebecca Hall. I didn't know her from Adam before this flick, but she's on the ye old radar now. Huge talent at making an interesting and prickly character who you root for even when they do something stupid - and it doesn't hurt that she's another in a long line of British babes on screen, and thankfully she has some brief nudity. It should be noted that Dominic West also flashes his twig & berries briefly for folks who dig that sort of thing, and in both instances Hall & West are fully in character & makes sense in the context of the filmn. Rest of the cast is uniformly good as well.

The mood is very similar to The Innocents, but I was actually reminded more of the film Photographing Fairies (about the Cottingly fairy photos) in the way that it blends Edwardian details of life and WWI's losses into the world of ghosts.

This film does have a solid scare or two (not just jump scares) but it suceeds better as creating a mood appropriate for gothic horror. Phtography is great too, and nuanced.

On the bad side: the ghost effects are low budget, and I can't help but think they would have been better off with photographic tricks as opposed to (what appeared to me to be) CGI. It works, but it's not going to go down in history as one of the better ghost effects on film. And there is one verbal reference that was weirdly off, where Rebbeca's paranormal investigator refers to kids still believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. In 1921 England, it would be Father Christmas, not Santa, and I don't know of the status of the Tooth Fairy in Europe but I don't think that phrase would have been used. A minor bit, but it's suprising to see in a UK production!

I recommend to anybody on the fence about seeing it! Since I saw it as a digital print, it makes me wonder if digital distrubution will actually make it easier and more profitable to place smaller films in more theatres here in the US.