Sometimes a movie’s biggest horror isn’t the demons—it’s the filmmaking itself. The Faith of Anna Waters (released in the U.S. as The Offering) is that special kind of supernatural disaster where even Satan would file a formal complaint with the producers. Billed as “Singapore’s first Hollywood supernatural feature,” it’s the cinematic equivalent of mixing The Exorcist with a PowerPoint presentation on international collaboration.
Directed by Kelvin Tong, this movie tries to balance cross-cultural horror, biblical mythology, and family trauma—and instead delivers a two-hour séance of nonsense where logic dies faster than the film’s budget.
The Plot: The Tower of Babel, Wi-Fi Edition
The story kicks off when Jamie Waters, a police detective in Chicago (played by Elizabeth Rice, who looks like she’s constantly regretting this script), learns that her sister Anna has mysteriously committed suicide in Singapore. Because apparently Chicago PD gives its detectives unlimited personal leave, she hops on a plane to the Lion City to solve the mystery herself.
When Jamie arrives, she moves into her dead sister’s house—because nothing screams “healthy coping mechanism” like relocating into a possible crime scene. She’s greeted by her niece, Katie, a child so creepy and stone-faced she makes The Ring’s Samara look like an American Girl doll. Katie insists they can’t leave the house because “Mommy said she’ll be back in seven days.” At this point, a sane person would book a flight home, but Jamie stays—because horror protagonists are contractually required to make poor life choices.
Meanwhile, a priest named Father De Silva (Colin Borgonon) is off somewhere in Singapore uncovering mysterious symbols that suggest the Tower of Babel is rising again. Yes, that Tower of Babel—from Genesis. Somehow, this biblical skyscraper subplot is supposed to tie into Anna’s death. Instead, it plays like a bad Dan Brown fanfic written during Sunday school detention.
The Horror: Exorcism by Wikipedia
Kelvin Tong, clearly a fan of exorcism movies, tries to infuse the film with demonic dread, but what we get instead is “budget airline exorcism.” There are crosses, priests, and Latin chants, but the scares are so mild they could air during breakfast television.
We’re treated to all the familiar clichés: whispering voices, flickering lights, and people discovering mysterious symbols that somehow look like they were drawn by a bored intern. The movie even throws in the obligatory “child drawing creepy pictures” scene, because nothing says “evil” like a Crayola-wielding kid.
But the real evil here is boredom. The pacing is so slow that by the time something vaguely supernatural happens, you’ve already started checking your phone to see if you’re still alive. When the demons finally show up, they seem as confused about their motivation as the audience is.
The Characters: Possessed by Bad Writing
Elizabeth Rice gives it her best shot as Jamie, a woman determined to solve her sister’s death by staring meaningfully at computer screens and occasionally screaming. Unfortunately, the script gives her about as much emotional range as a cardboard cross.
Matthew Settle plays Sam, a vaguely important supporting character whose job is to show up, look concerned, and provide exposition so dry it could be used as kindling. The rest of the cast seems equally lost—Adrian Pang, a talented Singaporean actor, spends most of the movie looking like he’s trying to remember why he agreed to this.
And then there’s the daughter, Katie (Adina Herz). Horror films live or die by their creepy children, but Katie is less terrifying and more terminally unenthusiastic. Imagine if Wednesday Addams was stuck in a permanent state of jet lag.
The Setting: Singapore, Land of Inexplicable CGI
One of the film’s big selling points was that it was shot in Singapore—the gleaming, modern metropolis of Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the movie manages to make it look like a foggy warehouse in the middle of nowhere.
Every scene is drenched in a dull brownish filter, as if the cinematographer accidentally dropped a sepia Instagram preset over the footage and called it a day. You could set this movie anywhere—a basement, a mall, a tax office—and it wouldn’t matter. Singapore deserves better.
Also, let’s talk about the special effects. The CGI here is so bad it feels nostalgic, like early 2000s SyFy Channel leftovers. At one point, a swarm of digital bugs crawls across the screen in a moment that’s supposed to be terrifying but instead looks like someone spilled coffee on the hard drive.
The Theology: Babel and Babble
The movie’s central concept—linking Anna’s suicide to the rebuilding of the Tower of Babel—is ambitious, sure, but also profoundly stupid.
The idea seems to be that demonic forces are trying to resurrect Babel so humanity can once again challenge God, and Singapore just happens to be the construction site. Why Singapore? The movie never explains, though maybe it’s because there are fewer zoning restrictions for ancient biblical structures.
Father De Silva spends most of his time deciphering vague biblical codes that feel like rejected subplots from The Da Vinci Code 5: Missionary Position. He stares at walls, mutters about prophecy, and occasionally calls people on the phone to warn them about something “terrible.” Spoiler alert: that terrible thing is the rest of the movie.
The Direction: Possessed by Mediocrity
Kelvin Tong is a competent director—his earlier film The Maid (2005) was a solid ghost story—but here he’s shackled by a script that seems to have been edited by a malfunctioning Roomba. The scenes don’t flow so much as collide into each other.
The tone swings wildly from supernatural horror to family drama to religious thriller, like three different movies got tangled in the editing software. You can practically hear the editor sighing in despair between cuts.
The camera work is serviceable but uninspired: lots of slow pans, fog machines working overtime, and frequent close-ups of people looking almost scared. The film is so devoid of tension that even the jump scares seem apologetic, like, “Sorry, we have to do this—it’s in the genre contract.”
The Writing: A Sermon in Gibberish
Let’s be clear: this movie’s script is the real villain.
The dialogue sounds like it was written by a Ouija board. People speak in expository riddles that make less sense the longer you think about them. “The tower is rising again,” Father De Silva says ominously, as though that explains why random Singaporeans are throwing themselves off buildings.
The characters never talk like real humans. Instead, they deliver monologues that sound like rejected fortune cookie messages. “Faith is the bridge between fear and truth,” someone says at one point. Sure, buddy. And this movie is the bridge between bad and worse.
Even the emotional beats—like Jamie’s grief over her sister’s death—feel hollow. You can almost hear the director whispering, “Cry harder, the audience is still awake.”
The Ending: Demons, Babel, and Total Collapse
By the time the movie reaches its third act, it’s as if the writers gave up and decided to throw everything at the wall—biblical prophecy, suicide cults, demonic possession, you name it. The Tower of Babel metaphor comes crashing down in a flurry of CGI that looks like it was rendered on an Etch A Sketch.
The climax involves Jamie confronting her sister’s ghost (or possibly a demon pretending to be her sister—it’s hard to tell), while Father De Silva tries to stop the “rising tower” with the power of prayer and vague shouting.
It all ends in confusion, noise, and the faint whiff of burning film stock. The audience walks away not with fear or awe, but with a single burning question: what the hell just happened?
Final Verdict: 2/10 – Faithless, Tasteless, and Pointless
The Faith of Anna Waters is the cinematic equivalent of attending Sunday mass while jet-lagged and hungover. It’s not scary, it’s not coherent, and it’s certainly not holy.
The movie wanted to be The Exorcist meets The Da Vinci Code—instead, it’s The PowerPoint of Confusion.
If this is what happens when you rebuild the Tower of Babel, maybe God was right to knock it down the first time.
So, do yourself a favor: don’t let this movie in. The devil’s got better taste.
