Unfortunately, the ultimate impact of this originality is stunted by uninspiring performances from the film’s co-stars, Gillan and Thwaites, whose unconvincing delivery of great lines make the bad ones noticeable—though to be fair, it’s hard to redeem “It wasn’t me! It was the mirror!” Thankfully, the performances of the children in the film surpass those of the actors playing them as adults, particularly that of Annalise Basso as young Kaylie.

Similarly unsatisfying is the vague, pervasive sense that had the writers, cinematographers, and the music department worked more synchronistically, the suspense to which the film aspires could have played out more convincingly. As writers, Flanagan and Howard effectively heighten situations with seemingly banal activities befitting the suburbs in which the film is set—a housewife scrubbing the floor, a dog barking, and children playing with fake guns, for instance—but without enough payoff on their own.

In the end, the film’s originality is also undermined by its predictability. That said, the unsettling circularity of its plot structure works in its favor and tempers the moments—though they are numerous—in which events seem extraneous to the story.

Without a doubt, “looks can be deceiving” is taken to an entirely new level in this film. In spite of a plot that at times seems to lag, its presentation of vision and sight as unreliable, especially in a genre that has overused the concept of faulty vision as it applies to ghosts and hallucinations, is refreshing.

—Staff writer Gina K. Hackett can be reached at ghackett@college.harvard.edu.