Yeah, pretty much; I mean, I did think it was a good enough movie on the whole due to how well Tobe directed it in general, but the fundamental experience just don't have enough going on for it to be a truly great movie; I mean, there's only so much worthwhile material you can get out of a movie where the second half is literally nothing but watching a single character just being chased around and tortured the whole time, you know?
The first half establishes the mundane beginning of the day, and the slow intrusions of the strange and disturbing. Essential when it comes to providing us a contrast with what happens later.
The second half is a film which is about depicting tonally, visually and aurally the kind of nightmare this girl has got herself into.
This is all it needs. It dares to be pure cinema because it understands stripping the film down to this essence is where it will find its power. What most modern horror has got completely wrong is in trying to establish a supposedly 'proper movie' around this kind of film experiment (that is more about sweat and stink and spiders and blood and buzzing and screaming and the sound of bones clattering on the floor and hammers dropped into buckets than wasting its energy 'developing characters).
A 'normal' 'not boring' movie would have Sally, during her pursuit discovering details about the family history as if its a mystery that we need to be solved. Encountering previous survivors and enlisting their help as if its about the action and not the terror. Talking about her life outside of the frame of the film and how she wants to get back to it as if we need to know this to understand what is happening in this film that is exclusively about the Now.
All this kind of traditional approach would have done is a break from the high pitched terror of the last 45 minutes that doesn't relent. And why the hell would we want that when this kind of narrative driven noise would only get in the way of all the noises that actually matter (see above).
If only more movies knew how to actually be great like this one, commit to its premise, throw convention into the dumpster fire where it belongs, than the world would be a better place. And maybe then all of these horrid sequels could have figured out the magic of the original and not wasted our time by existing and adopting all these unneccessary elements that elevate nothing (like back story revelations, motivations, character developments, stupid politics).