The horror perennial’s sixth film adds a third dimension. Unspooling over one family yuletide, its found footage catches stereoscopic flickers of spectral activity around a house once occupied by the cult now central to series mythology.
Again, it’s a test of one’s tolerance for watching predominantly empty frames – the anonymous performers scarcely count – in the hope something will jolt us from mounting tedium. For over an hour, the action highlight is a slight adjustment in the camber of a see-saw. 3D opens up new, inevitably darker looking corridors, but we’re basically being asked to pay a surcharge for much the same downtime and blank space. A marketing advance, maybe; a dead loss as a night out.
