A young family moves into a historic home in Georgia, only to learn they are not the house's only inhabitants. Soon they find themselves in the presence of a secret rising from underground and threatening to bring down anyone in its path.
The helmer generates suspense with shrewd pacing, deft emotional manipulation and efficient use of familiar tricks -- jittery editing, flickering lights and unsettling sounds -- common to haunted-house pictures.
To the film’s credit, it doesn’t waste much time in doling out shadowy figures and fake-outs for the gullible and easily goosed, and the cast as a whole dutifully delivers its panicked looks and cries in the night.
The story is ultimately nothing more than a decrepit vehicle for the moldiest of scary-movie clichés: screechy specters, inane character behavior and jump scares that a toddler could anticipate minutes ahead of time.