Acacia Movie Review

Remember that 1990 thriller The Guardian, where Jenny Seagrove plays a babysitter who turns out to be, like, a tree or something? Well Acacia is like that, only the tree-person is a little kid, and the movie isn't scary at all.

Ki-Hyung Park (Whispering Corridors) directs this baffling story about a happy family who adopts a child. Then things start to get weird: The kid spends his days outside under a dead acacia tree, which oddly comes back to life. Meanwhile, bad things start to happen to the family and the house. Bad kid, right?

Right. That's about the long and short of it, as Park's horror flick comes together in a surprisingly pedestrian fashion. Worst of all is the way it's put together, with long and lingering shots on... nothing much at all, or the wrong subject altogether. Actually, I take that back: Worst of all is the fact that even in the last act, when ants are attacking everyone and blood is running freely, it just isn't scary. The little kid sure knows how to creep you out with his unwavering stare, but that kind of freak-out just doesn't get you very far. (Slightly less bad are the special effects.)

Still, as far as tree-oriented horror goes, Acacia actually isn't completely horrible... but it's awfully wooden. Ah, get it!? Kill me now.