Horror films can make up for some weaker points if the fright aspects are strong, but unfortunately The Hex is something of a mixed bag. Let me just get one thing out of the way, I am not a fan of jump scares. When used sparingly they can be great, but this movie doesn’t believe Less is More as there are a lot of pointless jump scares. It’s a shame because the effects are top notch, the encounters are rightfully creepy, and the gore is unnerving.

The Hex opens with a young woman, Dilanne, cleaning up a bar in London after closing when her mother stops bye to say goodbye as she’s heading to South Africa. Later while on a video call with her mother after her flight, she witnesses her mom being murdered on screen. Months later, Dilanne visits a hotel owned her mom’s twin sister. As she begins going through her late mother’s belongings weird and unexplainable things start to happen. What follows is 70 or so minutes of clue hunting, secrets being exposed, things moving on their own and so good old fashion jumps scares.

The acting for the most part is done well enough as the cast proved to be quite capable. Coco Lloyd as Dilanne handles the lead in stride which is even more impressive considering this is her first feature length role. Mary-Anne Barlow does well playing the dual role of Kelly (the mother) and Lisa (the Aunt) as she gives the two roles very distinct personalities. Ultimately the acting was never in question, however The Hex falters in the area of pacing and editing. As the films strolls along, there are sudden edits and scene changes that are jarring and distracting. It almost seems like the story was still being written as filming was already underway. This affected the pacing as new story beats were picked up at random or left to the wayside.

The rough transitions and random scenes are made even more apparent thanks to the incredibly uneven audio. One moment will have quite talking with slightly too loud ambient noise then jump to loud background music for no apparent reason. I didn’t want to turn up the TV because I had no idea how loud it was randomly going to get, which caused me to miss story beats as the actors would be hard to hear.

Overall, at least I didn’t feel cursed having to watch The Hex.

5 out of 10