The Quiet Ones (United Kingdom, 2014)

Nine Things About the Movie The Quiet Ones

1.For a horror movie, The Quiet Ones is well-named.

2. It’s set at Oxford University in 1974. A professor has custody of an insane young woman who thinks she’s possessed. The professor hires three young assistants to help him with experiments to “cure” her.

3. The professor believes that the girl isn’t really possessed, but does have telekinetic powers that she doesn’t understand or know how to control. His experiments are basically psychological and physical torture techniques that will upset the girl enough to let out her “demon” so they can discover what’s really going on.

4. As the movie progresses, and the girl can’t get her demon to come out, the young assistants begin to suspect that maybe the whole thing is a hoax, or that the professor is obsessed with the girl.

5. The movie gets points for actually talking about real science and hypotheses, and how experiments can be contaminated. It’s also cool to watch the 1970’s setting and scientific technology.

6. The actual story is pretty interesting. But it’s not very scary; it’s more of a drama. So the director had to put in a few stupid “jump scares” just to make something happen.

7. The movie does a good job of building a creepy, moody drama where you aren’t sure exactly what the deal is. After awhile, the possessed girl seems less threatening than the professor in charge of her.

8. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t know how to end - the “solution” just comes out of nowhere to tie things up in a sudden and shocking way. It basically makes the rest of the movie pointless. I don't really even understand what happened.

9. As a psychological drama, this is a pretty interesting, stylish story. But as a horror movie, it’s at first kind of boring and then rather ridiculous.