I like the freedom that supernatural horror affords filmmakers. When we’re dealing with the spirit realm, there are far fewer rules. That afford the creative team behind a picture the chance to take the narrative to shocking and unexpected places. Kim Noonan’s Are You There? squanders that potential. The film starts as a formulaic supernatural horror picture that rarely veers outside the bounds of predictably. From there the film eventually shifts gears in service of a tired twist we’ve seen too many times before. The end result feels like two unrelated films fused together.

A parapsychology student called Rosa (Laura Sollet) receives a package and a note from her late grandmother with an archaic conjuring device (with far less functionality that an Ouija board) and instructions on making contact with the other side. Predictably, Rosa’s attempts to meddle in the affairs of the dead are met with damning consequences. Rosa’s mental health quickly begins to unravel, leaving her particularly vulnerable to the evil forces at foot.

The device Rosa’s grandmother left her requires that she light a candle in the apparatus, say the name of the spirit with whom she is trying to make contact, and then say the words, “Are you there?’ The summoning process calls to mind a cut-rate riff on Talk to Me. Sadly, the film never comes close to delivering the utter terror that superior efforts like Talk to Me do.