I'm afraid that I agree with the 2 other reviews here (at this point) I did give it a '5', which is generous, for the nice lighting and at least the EFFORT to create a good Gothic mood.
When I saw Del Toro films in the intro I was very hopeful, because Guillermo Del Toro is indeed one of my VERY favourite living directors. BUT... sadly, for some odd reason the story just did not want to gel in an effective way. The elements by themselves and especially the VERY effective mystery created from the beginning certainly seemed to promise a strong, Gothic film. But, and I'm not really sure why, it simply just did not come together in an effective way.
The visuals were very good, I really liked the lighting, the soundtrack, and even the acting was pretty decent across the board (with the one exception of the dopey policeman - I don't know WHERE the hell they dug him up) But, this is just one of those rather mysterious cases where you can't quite tell exactly what went wrong or precisely what the filmmakers did badly, since I feel taken in segments, the story seemed like it SHOULD have been very good. It's not like you can say, 'Oh, the acting is really bad', or 'The writing was poorly done', or 'The direction could have been done better' The reason is kind of uncertain as to why this didn't exactly work. The overall mood and atmosphere was created well. There was a palpable sense of Mystery right from the beginning which effectively draws the audience in, making them wonder what is going on. Even the ending was indeed surprising and not predictable at all. It SOUNDS like it should have worked, but somehow it really didn't...
The only thing I can come up with is a GUESS that perhaps just the way the story was plotted, or the pacing, or maybe the way the events were ordered. I honestly couldn't say.
I mean, the look and mood of the film was most definitely Del Toro, absolutely. But, ultimately the story just didn't work. So, I can't honestly recommend this movie despite its nice look and atmosphere. Perhaps there may be some people who are able to appreciate it more so at some level. But, like I've mentioned, to me personally, for some mysterious reason it just was not that effective.
