Based on its setup, The New Daughter would appear to be a ghost story. A troubled novelist moves his two children into a large and isolated house in rural South Carolina, and immediately they start to experience things that cannot be so readily explained. The audience might soon expect to see spirits of the dead haunting the film’s family, yet the fact is, something else entirely lurks on this cursed property.

Kevin Costner was coming off positive reviews for his villainous role in the psychological thriller Mr. Brooks when he was cast as the father in The New Daughter. Also joining the first directorial feature from Rec screenwriter Luis Berdejo was Pan’s Labyrinth star Ivana Baquero. The talent behind this adaptation of author John Connolly’s short story piqued an interest at the time, but upon its release in 2009, critics largely panned the film, singling out the pacing, the...