Many reviews praise this movie as atmospheric and I have to say, the cinematography is very well done, the locations and sets are beautiful, and there is some eerie (though derivative) imagery. All the icing can't hide the tasteless cake underneath, however. Movies are about story telling, not just the visuals, and too many movies these days are based on how good they look, not how well they work (M Night Shamalama-ding dong, anyone?).
This movie suffers from this problem. Looks great, but it's essentially empty. The story moves at a snail's pace; this is not atmospheric, it's just dull. Nothing is explained by the scant dialogue or even inferred visually, we just move slowly from one surreal scene to the next. The lead actress seems to suffer no sense of dread, she pretty much sleepwalks through everything.
A lot of stuff is ripped off from Bava and Argento, as well as several 70's movies like The Sentinel, and a dose of Lovecraft is thrown in for good measure (The last 8-10 minutes are essentially Dagon, which Stuart Gordon did very well several years later).
I can see what the director was aiming for, but it just doesn't work. It's too bad, because you can tell he put a lot of effort into this movie.
This movie suffers from this problem. Looks great, but it's essentially empty. The story moves at a snail's pace; this is not atmospheric, it's just dull. Nothing is explained by the scant dialogue or even inferred visually, we just move slowly from one surreal scene to the next. The lead actress seems to suffer no sense of dread, she pretty much sleepwalks through everything.
A lot of stuff is ripped off from Bava and Argento, as well as several 70's movies like The Sentinel, and a dose of Lovecraft is thrown in for good measure (The last 8-10 minutes are essentially Dagon, which Stuart Gordon did very well several years later).
I can see what the director was aiming for, but it just doesn't work. It's too bad, because you can tell he put a lot of effort into this movie.