ShangLuda Admirable film.

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

summerharrison-79458 There's a lot of build up for nothing, worth watching but it's not an amazing film.

Kirsty2515 Overall this film is okay. Its defiantly not the best supernatural horror movie I've seen but it defiantly deserves a watch. The plot is not anything that hasn't been done before, Nick Cages plays a father of a boy that goes missing. After a year of searching and doing his own investigation he discovers that there is an supernatural force taking children. Him and his wife fight to discover what happen to their son and try to get back.As expected with this type of movie there are a few jump scares. They are a little hit and miss. Some got me, some were massively preemptive and you knew they were coming. Some of the "scare" scenes felt a little bit rushed, it would have been better if they had more time to build the suspense. I think that would have made this movie a little more spine tingling. The crying lady character is quite sinister, when she appears in a few of the jump scare scenes she looked pretty menacing. I cant say I really liked the vultures that randomly appear. I get they are meant to be a calling card/sign of the crying lady but they feel out of place. I particularly liked the scene when Cage finds the sea of missing children, that was quite chilling. The script was everything it needed to be, but again nothing special. It ticked all the right boxes for the type of film it is, it just felt like it was missing that extra bit of scare factor. Nick Cage does a good job, it almost feels like he could be at the start of getting back on track with this movie. Its not as great as the Nick Cage that was in Con Air or Gone in 60 seconds but it was defiantly a better performance that he has given in other films recently. The only thing I hate seeing is him running. He is not a runner. He looks awkward and uncomfortable and for some reason it irritates me. Sarah Callies plays the part of the grieving mother well. She supports Cages character nicely. I would have liked to see her be a little more involved in the story but she was good when she was on scene. Watch this film if you have an hour and half to spare and fancy watching a jump scare supernatural film. If you want to watch a great horror movie then this isn't for you, maybe watch something else.

vincentlynch-moonoi I'll go against the grain here. I think this is a fairly good horror/suspense film. Certainly better than many of the slasher type horror films that seem to come out every few months.There is a problem -- Nicholas Cage. Not that there was anything wrong with his acting (not that it's his best outing, either). But, he's (gasp) too old for the part. In his mid-50s with a kid who's about 7. And he looks so much older and flabby in the face, too. I know what you may be thinking -- why am I being so mean. I'm not. He's just too old for the part and it shows.But beyond that, the movie held my attention. And, I disagree with a number of other posters in that this is not "the" standard plot. Sure, there are things you kinda guess and expect along the way, but it's been a long time since I saw a unique horror film. And there are things -- particularly the ending -- that are quite different from much that I've seen before.Yes, I know it was direct to DVD, which is not a good sign. But give it a chance.

MisterWhiplash Nicolas Cage does so many movies that it's the greatest shame is when he does a movie like this. And it's not that it's an entirely *awful* project to work on - it's a horror movie that doesn't rely on the requisite jump scares that so many mainstream movies that get released in theaters tend to have and has an inkling of a decent premise about a kid who gets taken on Halloween night and a year later it's discovered that it's part of a string of kids who are taken on the night - and yet it's also that it's not very good either. It doesn't give the opportunity for Cage to do something legitimately good (which he IS still capable of, see Green's JOE from 2014 for proof of that) nor is it a place for him to go full bat-s***-cage like Port of Call New Orleans. It's a watchable lump.It's from director Uli Edel so if you've seen Body of Evidence (where Madonna has sex with people to death and there's a court case about it), and the Baader Meinhoff Complex (which is actually a pretty good accounting of the terrorist group in the 70's), so he isn't exactly a hack... sort of. He's out to basically tell the story that he's been given. The trouble is there isn't a whole of story to give out, except that there are some requisite clichés, such as when the married couple of Cage and Sarah Wayne Callies call upon someone who can talk to 'spirits' or whatnot (Poltergeist and Insidious called...), or the simple fact that Cage is playing a literature professor who on cue is teaching Goethe to his students who give him rapturous applause at the end of his first lecture (and then later when he's all sad that his son is gone and teaching Irving there's just a collective shrug, it's almost like there is no class there). It's full of clichéd elements.I think it's simply a combination of Pay the Ghost being full of stuff from other movies like the cult in robes (I liked it better in Wicker Man, a Nic Cage bat-s*** movie I'd rather be watching) or that it's execution is just lazy (the CGI vultures that hover over buildings from time to time, but then when it has to be story-driven there's some shadowy figure in a window). The simpler fact is that it's not very scary, and the director seems to be trying to make it scarier through bursts of music and dark lighting that is unconvincing. And yet through all of this, a little of Cage kind of sort of trying is there... in parts. And the actress playing his wife from Walking Dead is okay (though she often has a look in her eyes of panic, which may be for the character but may be uh 'Hey, can someone get me out of here?'). But the general feeling by the end of this is 'ho-hum', and one can only hope Cage is done paying off his tax debts so he can do more things like Joe again.