I didn't have any expectations towards this movie, and probably it made it so good for me. Plus great setting in which I saw it, on a small film festival, outside during the cold night.Great acting, amazing atmosphere, fair story, good camera, intensive, great scare factor! The story is a bit usual and stereotype, but it doesn't affect how good this movie is. Karen is very scary, reminded me on Reagan from the Exorcist!In short it is the story of a family with problems, which moves to a new house in which they start to experience weird and paranormal things.I would highly recommend it!

TWO STARING EYES is a horror film from Holland but which completely follow the canons of the American horror cinema. I mean the plot, the characters and the setting could be very well from any horror film from Hollywood that no one would even notice… It is good on one side, but it's bad on the other. The good news is that the visual effects, the atmosphere created, some suspense scenes are well done, and technically we can say the film is good. The bad news is that following all these canons of the American cinema it also has the same clichés. I mean at parts it seems like a traditional ghost story full of "ghost stories' clichés" when in fact this plot has nothing to do with a ghost story! We find it at the end! So it ends adding nothing new to a plot that had too much potential and could be explored in other way… By other words, it could have been a great film, on the psychological side, but ends being just an entertaining spooky film so many times seen before… Nevertheless I score it 7/10.

For a country that hasn't made a lot of horror movies this movie sure is a huge improvement. But it still needs a lot of work. The slow buildup was pretty good and provided just enough tension to make it interesting. However there were not enough scary moments to qualify as a real horror. As a drama this also fails since most of the characters don't act as they would in real life. It was very hard for me to have sympathy for the mother. Since it was obvious she wasn't exactly right in the head from the start. If this fact wasn't entirely clear than some events would have worked better. A lot of events in the movie also relied too much on coincidence and convenience. The cousin is pretty vague throughout the movie until the end. Christine and her odd behavior towards her husband and her daughter should have at least made the husband curious to find out what is going on. But he makes no attempt whatsoever. Another example is the fact that both parents suddenly have to work when previously only one did. Logically it doesn't even make sense since they didn't have to pay rent and had more to spare. Plot wise it is understandable since they had to create the opportunity for the daughter Lisa to experience the things she does. Of course these are all tactics to build up the tension even more but to me it had quite the opposite effect. These superficial tactics would have worked better if the movie had other things to offer. Like really scary scenes or imagery that would suggest or give another perspective on the events. The lack of actual plot or character development made it a predictable affair to the experienced horror fan. And that really is a bloody shame since this movie had the potential to become a classic.

Two Eyes Staring is billed as 'the scariest Dutch horror film since The Vanishing.' This, it transpires in the introductory session with director Elbert van Strien, is not that hard, as it's very nearly the only Dutch horror film made since.Nine-year-old Lisa (Isabelle Stokkel) is a solemn, thoughtful little girl with a big imagination; a quiet, watchful little body who sees and hears more than she should. Not the kind of child best suited to living in a vast, creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere, plagued by spook, unexplained creaks and groans. But when her estranged grandmother dies, leaving her mother just such a property, guess what happens… But are the eerie and disturbing events that unfold the consequence of Lisa's fertile fantasy life, fuelled by her unnerving surroundings and the mysteries shrouding her mother's hidden past, or are there, in fact, supernatural forces at work, feeding on the sins of the past and revisiting them on the next generation? But there's more to this film than hollow-eyed ghost girls, perilous forays into the cellar and things that go bump in the night. Like Rosemary's Baby or previous EIFF showing Joshua, Two Eyes Staring is a fascinating and uncomfortable expose of the sometimes uneasy relationships that exist between parent and child. Lisa's father Paul (Barry Atsma) is by turns best buddy and stern disciplinarian, while mother Christine (Hadewych Minis) struggles to balance her career ambitions with bringing up a child who reminds her uncomfortably of demons from her past, and is in turn resentful, doting and unnerved by her quietly staring offspring.Okay, so there isn't a lot here you haven't seen before. Spooky houses, dark pasts and creepy children are hardly novel. But unexpected twists in the plot, a fantastic use of music and sound effects to create an atmosphere of unease and some solid central performances all serve to make Two Eyes Staring well worth seeing.But is it scary? Perhaps better ask the two girls sitting next to me, who leapt out of their skins on regular intervals. For them it was less Two Eyes Staring, more like Two Eyes Shut