The Vault

This film opens up with grue­some shots of dead bod­ies and vio­lent images of mur­der while ​‘Crim­son and Clover’ by Tom­my James & The Shon­dells blasts out from the speak­ers. It’s a promis­ing start to this mystery/​horror hybrid which gives off a Taran­ti­no-esque vibe of bloody pulp and pop cul­ture savvy. Unfor­tu­nate­ly though, the sim­i­lar­i­ties become more fre­quent and the film seems to reject any attempts at originality.

Star­ring James Fran­co in his 11^th film of 2017 (so far) The Vault revolves around two sis­ters as they attempt to rob a bank with their broth­er as a way to help solve his mon­ey prob­lems. May­hem ensues when the crew are sent down to an under­ground vault where some­thing tru­ly evil lurks.

Mat­ters kick off with an intri­cate­ly shot bank heist, some­thing direc­tor Dan Bush should be proud of. Yet the sto­ry slow­ly begins to fal­ter around the halfway mark. The fam­i­ly dra­ma used to set up the dra­ma now ham­pers the plot and dimin­ish­es any ten­sion. Toss­ing every hor­ror cliché imag­in­able into the pot, it plays on genre con­ven­tions while includ­ing var­i­ous copy­cat shots of haunt­ed look­ing door­ways (The Shin­ing), creepy black and white secu­ri­ty cam­era footage (Para­nor­mal Activ­i­ty) and mask wear­ing nas­ties (Hal­loween).

Thinks perk up a lit­tle when the under­ground vault is final­ly wedged opened and a demon­ic pres­ence makes its first appear­ance. Sil­hou­et­ted, head tilt­ed to the side and a dis­gust­ing sick­ly gar­gle emerg­ing from its mouth, the effect is ter­ri­fy­ing. For this moment, Bush cre­ates the kind of sus­pense that leaves you cov­er­ing your face in fear, but it’s soon revealed as a step too far. What hap­pens next is extreme­ly con­fus­ing, as the edit­ing goes hay­wire and the char­ac­ters run around not real­ly doing much. For all its ear­ly promise, The Vault ends up feel­ing tired and predictable.