Only so polished, a turd can be. While the Ascendant fanedit does an admirable job correcting the vast majority of the film's most memeable moments, the lore additions, clunky story, gutless stakes, and ginormous scale remain weird to the point of being mostly insurmountable. The changes did allow me to connect a bit more with the character beats, at least.

Absolutely nerve-shredding in a way that I haven't felt from a movie in some time, and everyone's effusive praise for Navarrette's performance is totally justified. Though some of the creepy happenings came across like they were thrown in just for creepy's sake, and it's ultimately "just" a Monkey's Paw tale, it sure is an uncommonly hard-hitting and well-crafted one of those.

Daily Horror Hunt #56 / 8 Feb 2023 / Obsession

A tragic villain to be pitied and a range of interesting characters made this a memorable watch, and I really liked its smart integration of backstory and clever writing, among other things. It can feel dated at times, and I struggled a bit with its score of cacophonous keys, but as a whole this holds up quite well.