The Haunting of Mia Moss (2018) Poster

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2/10
Donnie Darko chills with Manos: The Hands of Fate skills
loathsomethings12 August 2022
A no-spoilers review, brought to you by Loathsome Things: A Horror Movie Podcast

I gave this movie a 2/10 for having some admirable artistic qualities. It is not, however, a good movie. I am interested enough to watch The Possession of Mia Moss, should it ever become available.

You might like it if: *You enjoy looking at Nicola Fiore's face *You enjoy micro-budget scares and aren't bothered by un-acted line delivery *You are a die-hard deep-cut indie horror nerd

You might not like it if: *You have a healthy aversion to bad acting *You have a normal human level of impatience *You wish your nephew would stop making you be in his silly little movies

The micro-budget flick showcases a director practicing the fundamentals. We get an eerie tone thanks to long shots, an unsettling soundtrack, and some menacing creepypasta business lurking in the background.

This movie is composed of overly-long sequences. Sometimes Mia goes for an entire walk. Sometimes Mia just watches youtube videos for a long time. Sometimes a silly camera filter is applied over too much footage of a bartender boringly pouring drinks. Sometimes a woman burns a bundle of white sage through the house... and makes sure not to miss a square inch. We, the viewers, are made sure of this. This might count as a spoiler, given how I just described a much larger percentage of the movie's run-time than you'd expect.

This movie seems to be funded by the white sage industry. At times, it watches like a 1950s-style public service film on the benefits and many uses of white sage. Also, possibly, the dangers of women who dress in identical outfits while chatting on the stairs.

Nicola Fiore's does some acceptable acting, but is surrounded by what is almost certainly the director's friends and family members. The acting is incompetent, but mostly in a low-energy way that's less cringey than the loud over-acting common to these types of films. Still, it sets a low ceiling for overall movie-watching quality.

It takes a little over and hour before anything resembling a plot arrives. We're mostly just watching Mia do slice-of-life stuff as bumpers to her going to the bathroom and looking in the mirror in the bathroom. Where's she going this time? O, it's the bathroom again! I guess, maybe, that was another spoiler.

The costumes are used to sufficiently spooky effect, especially considering that they probably came from going-out-of-business box from ITT Tech's theater department.

I appreciate this movie as the evidence of a director practicing the art of horror in cinema and trying to learn from the experience. There are plenty of worse movies in this grade of film-making. Also, there is video evidence of someone having a badass DVD collection.

  • Josh, from Loathsome Things: A Horror Movie Podcast.
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2/10
Had to stop wasting my time and destroying my eardrums.
sexxybiter27 February 2023
I'm constantly looking for horror and thriller movies to feed the inner junkie, and happened upon this one. It grabbed my attention by being based on actual events, so I gave it the good college try that I give every movie, including those I never finish. And this is getting added to that list.

Super slow beginning, but that's not even the reason for the low rating. What made me unable to continue watching was the super low audio. And I'm not talking my tv's volume being low; Prime is abnormally loud on my tv. I'm talking about the voices. Everything else was a nice, audible volume, but I couldn't hear the people's voices. It's like they didn't have mics on set or something. And I wasn't going to crank up the volume and deafen myself with all the other noises just to hear people speaking.
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1/10
Horror was time spent watching this garbage
stevekraus-3418726 March 2023
Was this done by two junior high school students as part of a school project? It still would have gotten an F for horrendous audio, obnoxious flashing scenes, terrible script and totally amateurish acting. Clearly no budget for anything and certainly not remotely interesting or scary. Embarrassing for all involved. Can only guess they were all volunteers.

There is no future for the writers, director or actors but they at least got their two minutes of fame. Watch grass grow over this completely unredeemable pretense of moving images. It doesn't even merit being called a movie or film. I can only hope the names of all involved were pseudonyms and that this was meant as a joke to see how bad they could be and still make it in th3 public sphere.
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