I saw this film at the Tribeca film festival and it really knocked my socks off. Its a slowly building film that messes with your head, isn't gory and manages to through in notions of religious faith. It made me and the audience I saw it with jump several times (even when we saw it coming). Its a masterpiece of its kind. And the best of the 8 films I've seen so far at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The plot has a college girl go home because something has happened to her sister. When she gets home she finds her sister missing and her mother possessed by an even stronger Christian belief. As she pleads with the police to help find her sister people in her apartment complex begin dying, all are some how connected to her sister.
I know this film isn't going to please people who need blood and guts and ooze to be scared. There are no axe wielding maniacs or typical things one associates with modern horror. Instead we have a film that shows a world askew and builds menace from that. Sure there are shocks and death, but at the same time they are subtly done, look away and you'll miss an eye that moves exactly the way eyes can't, or a mouth that's a little too wide.
I love that this film has ideas in its head beyond just being scary. This is a film that is very much rooted in the worlds of Christianity, atheism and shamanism. It's a film that relies on the struggles of the three points of view to create a very tense atmosphere. Ultimately the film is not so much a horror film as a meditation on the nature of faith.
For one of the few times since Silence of the Lambs I saw a horror movie with an audience that was wound up tight as a drum. Only one time, after a very strange passage was there any sort of "unintentional laughter" which seemed from what I could hear to come from unease at what some people were experiencing. I don't know when was the last time that I jumped as many times as I did here. to be certain I could see the jumps coming but I still leapt out of my seat.
If there are any flaws its that toward the end there a couple of small moments where things happen that aren't explained, why is the time of death questioned? (I'm guessing an autopsy report but its not spelled out). The very end of the film also doesn't have an ending that is completely satisfying, the tension isn't released but rather dissipates (on the other hand if you see the film as not just a horror film it makes more sense.) Still this film knocked my socks off. I stared at the screen wanting to know what was coming and dreading the possibilities.
This is a must see film for those who don't need the blood and the body parts.
The plot has a college girl go home because something has happened to her sister. When she gets home she finds her sister missing and her mother possessed by an even stronger Christian belief. As she pleads with the police to help find her sister people in her apartment complex begin dying, all are some how connected to her sister.
I know this film isn't going to please people who need blood and guts and ooze to be scared. There are no axe wielding maniacs or typical things one associates with modern horror. Instead we have a film that shows a world askew and builds menace from that. Sure there are shocks and death, but at the same time they are subtly done, look away and you'll miss an eye that moves exactly the way eyes can't, or a mouth that's a little too wide.
I love that this film has ideas in its head beyond just being scary. This is a film that is very much rooted in the worlds of Christianity, atheism and shamanism. It's a film that relies on the struggles of the three points of view to create a very tense atmosphere. Ultimately the film is not so much a horror film as a meditation on the nature of faith.
For one of the few times since Silence of the Lambs I saw a horror movie with an audience that was wound up tight as a drum. Only one time, after a very strange passage was there any sort of "unintentional laughter" which seemed from what I could hear to come from unease at what some people were experiencing. I don't know when was the last time that I jumped as many times as I did here. to be certain I could see the jumps coming but I still leapt out of my seat.
If there are any flaws its that toward the end there a couple of small moments where things happen that aren't explained, why is the time of death questioned? (I'm guessing an autopsy report but its not spelled out). The very end of the film also doesn't have an ending that is completely satisfying, the tension isn't released but rather dissipates (on the other hand if you see the film as not just a horror film it makes more sense.) Still this film knocked my socks off. I stared at the screen wanting to know what was coming and dreading the possibilities.
This is a must see film for those who don't need the blood and the body parts.