Another week, another jumpscare demon summoning movie. This time from Australia, but aside from the accents it looks and feels entirely American. The usual ingredients are all there. A cast of annoying, loudmoth, diverse, phone addicted teenagers come across cursed artifact that allows them to contact the spirit realm and become briefly possessed. In this film it's an embalmed hand.

Naturally the main characters have a traumatic backstory, with their mother having passed in an untimely manner. They end up talking to her, but stay connected to the other side for too long. Bad things happen.

If you've suffered through bad music, bad acting and bad party scenes until that point in the film, you can be relieved. Things do get better, which is a rarity for the horror genre. Usually they start strong and run out of steam. This one is the opposite. It significantly improves as it goes along.

There are some good ideas here, but sadly they're never fully developed or fully explained. The ending is by far the strongest part of the film, but the buildup to it remains virtually unexplained. It's a pity, because there would have been room for a good moral dilemma. Still, the last scene is great and redeems the second half of the film.

On a technical level, the film is competently made. The color grading looks really nice, which is almost a rarity in films these days. The scary scenes are very well filmed and the audio editing is top notch. Audio is the most important aspect of a horror film, and they nail it here. The rotating camera gimmick is fun, but gets overused.

If you can get through the horrible first half, you might get some enjoyment out of this. Overall, I couldn't enjoy it. The teens were just too annoying, and the conflict and plot too trite.