Emily Jenkins is dedicated to her job as a social worker and spends her time doing nothing but making sure the children in her cases are safe and happy. When she receives her 39th case she finds out that the parents are trying to kill their 10 year old daughter, Lilith. After a troubling call from Lilith, Emily arrives at her house just in time to stop her crazy parents from killing their daughter and Emily decides to take Lilith in and look after her herself.

But soon bad things begin to happen to people around Emily and people she cares about are found dead in the most terrifying ways. Speaking to Lilith's parents who are locked up in a mental hospital, Emily realises that Lilith isn't as sweet and innocent as she makes out to be and case 39 is about to become a whole lot worse.

~ Cast ~
Emily Jenkins - Renée Zellweger
Lilith Sullivan - Jodelle Ferland
Douglas Ames - Bradley Cooper
Detective Mike Barron - Ian McShane
Wayne - Adrian Lester

Jodelle Ferland, who plays Lilly, the young and very troubled girl, I thought was an excellent actress. She was the perfect person to play the part of Lilith as she looks completely sweet, innocent and angelic but she managed to make herself look evil and malicious just by a simple change in her facial expressions. Her very sweet and high-pitched voice and big sad eyes draw you in and make you think that she's such a lovely little girl. But when she turns into the demon child her sweet voice starts to sound like it's mocking you and the whole innocent persona seems completely fake. She also managed to act and sound like a child one minute and then like an adult the next.

I thought that both Renée Zellweger and Bradley Cooper were slightly strange casts for a thriller movie as they're usually only in rom-coms but they both surprised me and were actually pretty good in this genre of film. You can't help but like Renée Zellweger's character, Emily, as she's caring and kind by taking in a little girl she barely knows. But we don't actually find out that much about Emily so I felt like I couldn't totally warm to her as I didn't know much about her character outside from work.

Being a scary film, it did make me jump in quite a few places but this was often when you thought something was about to happen because the music and suspense builds up, but then it turns out to be nothing at all. I didn't feel the usual terror and panic that I often do when watching scary movies and it didn't have me cowering in my seat or grabbing the arm of the person sitting next to me. I kind of knew when the actual scary parts were about to happen as the demon child is constantly around, so it didn't really give the film much suspense.

This is an average thriller movie for me - I like something a bit more scary that gets the adrenaline pumping and the heart racing and this wasn't really quite scary enough. For Alex though, who's a complete wimp and hates watching scary films, this was OK for him as it wasn't too scary! I think the storyline is a good one and the acting is all good enough so I would recommend it if you enjoy these types of films, but just don't expect too much from it.

Certificate rating: 15
Running time: 110 minutes
Director: Christian Alvart