Saw 'The Faith of Anna Waters' being fond of horror/thriller regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing.

Unfortunately, despite not reading any reviews purposefully before watching, am going to have to agree with all the reviewers who hated 'The Faith of Anna Waters'. A film that never took off, further ran out of steam very quickly and rapidly got worse by a second half that makes one not want to keep watching. Never judge a film without seeing the whole thing and wanted to give 'The Faith of Anna Waters', so gave it a fair chance.

The location is suitably spooky, which is pretty much the only thing the film has against it.

However, so much brings 'The Faith of Anna Waters' down. The acting is both over-histrionic or disinterested and the direction is so phoned in and pedestrian, one gets the sense that the director showed no interest in the film at all. Too much of the soundtrack is intrusive and annoying, made worse by the excessive and obvious sound effects that just cheapens the mood. The film looks drab generally and like it was made in haste.

Where 'The Faith of Anna Waters' most underwhelms is the writing and story. The writing is incredibly lazy, it's awkward in dialogue, very confused as a result of not tying things up or going into full detail and doesn't feel complete. The story suffers from a very limp pace, apparent early on and gets slower and slower until an interminably dragged out second half. It further suffers from feeling too much like a short film stretched out with a lot of useless padding. The stereotypical characters are both bland and annoying and the inconsistent and illogical motivations bring them down further.

Could not get behind or relate to the overwrought dead sister part of the plot and the whole stuff with the priests was just weird and convoluted badly an otherwise too simple story.

For a film billed as a horror/thriller, there is very little interesting and nothing remotely scary which makes a waste of such a spooky-looking location. Any scares are too few and are far too predictable, anaemic and weakly timed to make impact, with the dull pacing and obvious sound effects cheapening them significantly. 'The Faith of Anna Waters' doesn't engage let alone thrill, and just frustrates constantly in how increasingly dull and ridiculous it is. The ending and most of the feeble attempts at explanation were incredibly vague and like they were made up on the spot.

Summing up, next to nothing to recommend here. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Reporter Jamie Waters (a solid and appealing portrayal by Elizabeth Rice) goes to Singapore to uncover the truth about the mysterious circumstances pertaining to the suicide death of her sister. During said investigation Jamie runs afoul of a lethal and powerful demonic entity that's using modern technology to complete an ancient mission.

Writer/director Kelvin Wong relates the engrossing story at a constant pace, makes nice use of the exotic locations, takes time to develop the characters, ably crafts a creepy and unsettling atmosphere, and smartly explores the strong central themes of love, faith, and sacrifice. The sound acting by the capable cast keeps this movie humming: Matthew Settle as flawed, but decent deadbeat dad and father Sam Harris, Adina Herz as sweet little girl Katie, Adrian Pang as the eager Father Matthew Goh, Jaymee Ong as perky babysitter Marjorie Tan, and Colin Borgonon as the sage Father De Silva. A neat little fright film.

Jamie (Elizabeth Rice) travels to Singapore to "investigate" her sister's death (Rayann Condy). Not too much to investigate, she left her PC camera on as she placed a plastic bag over her head. Case close. Blame the ex-husband (Matthew Settle) kidnap the niece Katie (Adina Herz) go back to Chicago and then the ex can hire Liam Neeson to go find his daughter. Set a few guys on fire and you got yourself a film. Nope. She hangs around and discovers that other people are killing themselves, their house is haunted, the ex-is really a nice guy and all the main characters all have some disease/condition.

The computer binary language is universal and this creates a new tower of Babel, but we still need the old one and an exorcism and an anagram. And how did Jamie get home so fast when Katie was in trouble. That was like across town in 2 seconds as if Singapore has no traffic.

This film is being renamed "The Faith of Anna Waters" perhaps to avoid confusion with other films of that title. The acting was not convincing. Adina Herz was not a good fit for the role.

Now the good news. There was no swearing sex or nudity in the film. Now if I had a young girl I would let her/her friends watch this film while I quietly would place a picture of the Tower of Babel in her closet. Sorry, that's how our family rolls.