Perhaps the best character in Jessabelle are the bayous themselves.

The more complicated it gets, the less scary it becomes.

As the film racks up incidents and characters and explanations, the mystery dissipates. It's a strange spectacle: a horror film that spends as much time dismantling suspense as it does building it.

Flounders with uncertainty of direction as it touches on socio-economic depression, demons, vengeance, race and culture but never fleshes anything out. Everything feels like an after-thought as opposed to being cohesively constructed and interlaced.