As I watch more and more movies, I have started to judge them based on their promise and delivery. The trailer is the promise and the movie is the delivery. The Departed marketed itself as a realistic crime drama and delivered. It was also a great movie. So it gets very high scores. American Pie promised to be a raunchy high school comedy and delivered. But it's not exactly Oscar worthy, so it gets a high score. Adventureland promised to be like superbad in its trailers, and even though I thought it was a solid indie drama, I was upset watching it because I felt like I was misled. So it gets a mixed score. It is through this scope that I write my reviews.
I read user reviews over critics reviews because they tend to be more honest and trustworthy. And I want anyone who stumbles across any of mine to feel like after reading it they know exactly what they are in for. Nothing is more annoying than reading a review, watching that movie, and feeling like you were just hoodwinked into wasting your time and money.
Visions is not a great movie that will stay with you. But it delivers on exactly what it purports to be - a B movie with some cheap thrills and scares. It also had a satisfactory ending, which is a nice bonus for these types of movies. There is a creepy storyline, the acting is not so bad or unenthusiastic that it distracts from the story and does not have too many slow moments where your interest could wander. Movies like this always have plot holes where the character would have certainly done something more logical in real life and sometimes these holes are so large they cannot be overlooked and ruin the movie - but this one did not have any major holes. Of course, the character could have been a little safer but nothing too outrageous.
I would have preferred a little more creepiness in the shots and sometimes the stakes did not feel high enough, but going in you are not really expecting a horror movie on par with the Shining so I cannot really complain too much.
My advice is this - if you want to kill a couple of hours before bed with a low budget horror movie, whose scares are more psychological than gore, Visions is a watch.
