There’s little to like in this undercooked “horror” about three siblings who stage a bank heist and run into trouble when they encounter a haunted vault. Heavy on gore (we see someone kill themselves with a power drill), but light on story, The Vault lazily relies on James Franco’s sinister 70s porn ’tache and permanently furrowed brow to signal the direction of the narrative in lieu of a properly structured script. For a film that’s a restrained 90 minutes long, it’s dour, it drags and is drunk on its own incoherent mythology. Without real stakes, the scares don’t land – fine, if it’s meant to be a fun romp, but I only detected one joke (“The only thing that spooks me is a bad loan,” says the bank manager).
In terms of star power, Taryn Manning is the main attraction, trotting out the white trash act with which she’s made her name (Pennsatucky in Orange Is the New Black, and pregnant teen Mimi in the Britney Spears vehicle Crossroads), but she’s gritting her teeth through the thankless role.
