They Live in the Grey (2022) Poster

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6/10
Interesting and at times scary, but a little tough to sit through.
WisdomsHammer1 March 2022
I actually really liked this movie, but the pacing is agonizingly slow at times. The main character is someone who has experienced the loss of her child and blames herself for it, and as a result, she pushes everyone away. Unfortunately, she also pushes the audience away. It's like you have to drag the story out of her. This could be the fault of the way this was directed, written, the lead actor's choices, or the editing of the final product, or some combination of them - I'm honestly not sure, but it happened over and over again. During one of the last scenes (don't worry, no spoilers), the lead literally has a phone to her mouth and almost seems to refuse to deliver the next line, drawing it out way, way, WAY too long. There's an art to dramatic pauses. This movie doesn't get it right. But I give it a 6/10 for premise, atmosphere, and an interesting take on the whole "person who sees dead people" / medium idea. I would love to see this recut. It could be a really decent movie.
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5/10
What might have been...
haskel-7295119 February 2022
This could have been excellent. Is it familiar and derivative? Yes, but original enough to be compelling. Unfortunately, it could have really used a better editor - a 2 plus hour runtime makes it drag. It suffers from sluggish pacing and a trim of at least 20 unnecessary minutes would have helped that. Then there's the random "oh look, we're artists" oddball camera angles at inopportune times that scream "amateurs" instead of artists. Still watchable, but in more capable hands it could have been really memorable.
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5/10
What wasted potential!
jamosmonk28 February 2022
The idea of the movies plot is decent. The special effects are decent. There are 3 main faults. The acting is just not good, however it could have been overlooked if not for the next two issues. The pacing is needlessly slow and drawn out. It ruins the tension it could be using. The editing is not good. Whether that harmed the pacing or vice versa...This would be a passable movie if the pace was tightened up and slightly better acting was coaxed out of the actors. The child actors outshine the leads.smh. This looks like it could've been the first rough draft for the Sixth Sense before it was nailed down.
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4/10
Very misleading synopsis
ryanpascall12 April 2022
I came into this expecting a horror based on the synopsis but all I got was a sad film of a woman dealing with grief while occasionally a glass moves.

Boring, trite and (frankly) depressing this was not what I expected or wanted and, while Michelle Krusiec's acting was great, it couldn't carry this film for me.
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3/10
Pass
gab-6759919 February 2022
The actress in this was just not one you could relate to or one that was even interesting. Acting abilities where overlapped with the how long this movie was. Fast-forward and you would still not miss much. So if you like long movies with not much going on in between then this is you movie.
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4/10
I see dead people. . . again!
spinoff7526 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Directors/writers aren't aware of The Sixth Sense of Shyamalan? They basically copied the movie. Instead of a child and a shrink they have a child service social worker who sees ghosts with a traumatic past (son's death) as the kid's mother (grandma's death). 3 characters in 1! Also the Vang Brothers "creativity" put some violent ghosts, suicidal ghosts, adviser ghosts. . . Meh! It's not Michelle Krusiec's fault, she did what she could. The trouble is the wannabe screenplay. Period.
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6/10
Better than I anticipated
amytude20 February 2022
Look, this isn't anything new and revolutionary. You've seen similar in a dozen other movies

But , for a shudder original made for their service horror flick , it's a hell of a lot better than I figured it would be.

I was interested enough to want to stick around and unravel things

The acting was not exceptional, but it was decent enough. The " twist" wasn't anything I didn't see coming. In fact I saw it awhile back but figured that was too simplistic so I second guessed myself into some crazy complicated ideas. Nope. Not sixth sense haha

It's a good time killer with a good creepy vibe. Nothing you'll be telling your friends about , but a good way to spend an evening relaxing.
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4/10
What could have been...
fatblue26 February 2022
They Live in the Grey is fine. I liked the casting, and some of the story. It's derivative of several other horror movies but never reaches the heights it could have. The direction and cinematography seemed equal to a television show like NCIS or CSI. The scares don't scare, the characters aren't ones I am compelled to find out more about.
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6/10
Most depressing horror movie
duckman_07920 February 2022
Heavily flawed movie. But, some of the ideas and scenes stood out enough to make me want to see this movie again one day. Just look past things like the husband's partner looking more like a homless Charles Manson than a police officer. And, I'd actually believe in ghosts before I'd believe that a civil servant CPS worker can be fired on the spot without any warning. But with elements of 6th Sense and some of the life after death and ghost scenes, it's worth watching.
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3/10
Could have been good...
martlarrivee19 February 2022
... but the movie suffers from bad acting and average cinematography. I don't want to be mean, but the main actress as the personality of a fish, it's like looking at a blank page. Some nice ideas, but when a movie relies so much on the mood, you need stellar acting and direction. Otherwise nothing carries the weight of the subject matter.
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9/10
Spooky, scary, beautiful.
JaneBingley18 February 2022
For the first time since ever, I get a horror movie that is scary, well acted and with a beautiful story, and its not a slowburn! Amazing! This is so good, you care for the people involved and the horrors they go through.

Based on their mobile phones, this has to be set in present day. Because the police officer (the husband) has a new iPhone. However, both the two women have old, tiny flip phones, from the early 2000. And everything else (most cars, kitchen appliances, houses, clothes) look at least 20 years old.

I did not see the twist coming, but maybe you will :) I almost didn't watch this, because of the tacky cover. It reminded me of some B-movie from years ago. Very happy that my curiosity won over my prejudice.
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6/10
Not terrible
markomundsen21 February 2022
Definitely a slow burn and acting was poor at times. Could have been 30 mins shorter and still been the same film. Ending was good though with a nice twist. All in all I enjoyed it.
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3/10
Snoozefest of epic proportions...
paul_haakonsen24 March 2022
Initially I was lured in to watching "They Live in the Grey" given the movie's cover, but also because it was a horror/thriller that I hadn't already seen. And yeah, I did find the movie's cover rather interesting. So of course I opted to sit down and watch what writers and directors Abel Vang and Burlee Vang had to offer.

And as it turned out, then writers and directors Abel Vang and Burlee Vang didn't have a whole lot to offer. This movie is unfathomably slow paced. So slow and uneventful, in fact, that I was good and ready to give up on the ordeal a mere 35 minutes into the ordeal. The movie just utterly lacked momentum, and nothing worthwhile was happening in the insanely slow narrative.

Sure, actress Michelle Krusiec was doing a great job in portraying the troubled case worker Claire Yang, but come on, she virtually had nothing to work with in terms of a proper script and also had the pacing of the movie working against her.

This movie entirely fell short of entertaining me. It was simply too slow paced and too uneventful to provide me with any sense of entertainment or enjoyment. So "They Live in the Grey" is not a movie I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on.

For a horror/thriller then "They Live in the Grey" just didn't deliver anything worthwhile and brought nothing interesting to the genre.

My rating of "They Live in the Grey" lands on a very generous three out of ten stars, and that is based on the production value and Michelle Krusiec's performance solely.
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1/10
Boring
cinemagick27 February 2022
Extremely boring. Can't believe people like this get funding while hundreds of actually talented filmmakers wallow in obscurity. Anyway, this film is horrible. Weak narrative. Another movie with lazy structure masquerading as avant-garde. Nothing special or interesting.
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3/10
I just couldn't get through it.
FreakyDarling14 March 2022
I really had hopes because of the description and the first actors listed. All the actors did well for what they were given. Honestly what I could get through was decent enough, but it drags on. Literally at the half way mark I stopped. I couldn't take the length of time they took for a lot of the scenes. I do try to finish most of what I watch, but when I saw it still had a whole other hour to it, I called it quits. And I've watched swill such as Terror Toons. That was years ago and a learning lesson that led to the reason for my inability to finish this movie.
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5/10
It's not Bad, just longer than it needs to be.
teamcannon66 March 2022
I could be wrong but this film is suffering from a lack of editing. It feels like it's intentional. Trying to be more psychological in its pacing, but it's actually just taking a really long time to achieve something that it doesn't achieve. It's not bad, it's just treating the story as if it's wholly original in concept. It's not. The first hour can be summed up in 20 minutes max. If it started from there, Probably a 6.5 (7)/10.
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7/10
Slow burner
christinecortes21 February 2022
This is more of a thriller/mystery than a horror movie. I did enjoy it but it needed more fluidity in its story as I felt it just jumped all over the place.
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2/10
Bad knock off of The Sixth Sense
kasmayo-8417628 February 2022
Very boring and copied a lot from other movies manly the sixth sense. I was disappointed, it is a very slow movie hard to stay interested in it, The scenes with ghost was copied almost so that is was just horrible.
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6/10
Mediocre Supernatural Horror
svenknight-6029817 February 2022
Wasn't expecting much from this, but it was quite good, the acting wasn't that good, but the atmosphere is there and it makes up for it. 6/10, not a great movie but not a bad one either.
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3/10
Just a terrible film.
frankblack-799611 April 2022
One of the dumbest main characters ever in a sixth sense type movie. The woman is a pea brained basket case. It may have some creepy moments but it was so poorly written that you will forget about those quickly.
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9/10
Great Ghost Story
twelve-house-books17 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This one should be on your shelf of Great Ghost Stories with I Am Dina, The Others, I Am A Ghost, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and The Sixth Sense. A social worker who is a closet clairvoyant takes a case that nearly gets her killed, and all along we get to see the various ghosts that she can see--some pretty disturbing. Beautifully acted, and stunningly shot with unique angles and perspectives.
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6/10
Explores Interesting Ideas with the Haunting Narrative with Issues
Reviews_of_the_Dead27 June 2022
This is a movie that went on my radar as one of the earlier 2022 horror films. I knew this one went to Shudder and that this featured an Asian star and it made me wonder if we'd get lore from a different country. Aside from that, I didn't know much else.

Synopsis: Claire (Michelle Krusiec), while investigating a child abuse case, discovers that the family is being tormented by a supernatural entity.

There is a bleak start to this movie. We're in a house that looks lived in. We hear odd sounds and it shifts over to someone trying to kill themselves. The rope snaps, dropping them to the ground. It then shifts us over to our lead, Claire. She is married to Peter (Ken Kirby), but they're estranged. Through different things, we learn that they had a son by the name of Lucas (Jaden Tran). He passed away and they haven't gotten over it. I'll point out here that Claire is a social worker with Child Protective Services and Peter is a police officer.

We then shift over to Claire in court. The judge is ruling that a mother will no longer have custody of her child and Claire tries to sway his decision. The only way that she can is to recant her statements. She cannot do this though. We see things are a bit tense with her boss due to this.

What I want to interject here is that Claire is different. She is clairvoyant and sees ghosts. She didn't reveal this to her husband so he has no idea. It makes her life more difficult. There is a spooky scene with her and Steve (Ian Stanley), a ghost she meets in her dining room. This is just the start.

The crux of this movie is that Claire is assigned to the case with Sophie Lang (Madelyn Grace). She has a cut on her cheek and bruises when she first meets the girl. Sophie lives with her father, Giles (J. R. Cacia), and mother, Audrey (Ellen Wroe). Through an interview with the girl, Sophie reveals that her stories of where the injuries came from are lies. It isn't from her parents though either. The house is haunted and a ghost is doing them. Claire experiences it as well. This complicates things with her job to where she wants to give up the case. When Sophie's principal contacts CSP again, Claire tries to do what she can to keep this family together and save them from this supernatural entity. Her own life with get in the way and dark secrets are revealed.

That is where I'll leave my recap as well as fleshing out our key characters. Where I want to start is that I was on board in the beginning for what this movie was doing. It hooked me with the attempted suicide and seeing the awkward interaction between Claire and Peter. Then seeing her in court and her first interaction with a ghost. I wasn't sure if that was who Steve was, but it does well in establishing that. I give credit to this movie. It jumped right in, got my attention and then got us to the main problem we are exploring. It is an interesting dilemma for sure.

I do feel that I need to shift over to an issue I had here though. This movie is too long to the point where I lost interest. I had to rewind a couple of scenes to make sure I didn't miss anything as my mind was wandering. This runs over two hours and it doesn't need to be. I honestly think there is fifteen to thirty minutes that could be trimmed to make this run tighter. Even with removing that, I think you still have enough to establish the Yang and the Lang families while the tension ramps up. With how it is, the movie just became boring unfortunately.

With that taken care of, I want to go over to the implications here. Now for a brief time, I collaborated with social workers. Not necessarily like we get here, but similar enough. This is a job that is rewarding when good things happening but draining when you must do tough things. I like that it is set up that Claire has a good heart. Losing her child makes her want to help other mothers. There is the idea though of doing your job, even if you don't necessarily agree. It is a moral dilemma. She goes over and above to help the Lang family. This raises the stakes and it worked for me. It also requires Claire to come to terms with her loss in the process. Despite all this that they did well, there is a reveal at the end that didn't necessarily need to be there. It felt like the movie though it needed to be edgier and do something to shock us. I can understand the route taken by the character though.

The last bit here that I wanted to go into would be Claire and her loss. Throughout the movie, we see Peter trying to reconcile with her. It made me think that he did something, but it turns out that she is harboring the guilt. She is pushing him away in the process. Neither are to blame. I won't go farther than that. We see how both handle this in different ways. We see that he still cares and I think she does as well. She just can't forgive herself. I've not experienced what they have, so I can't connect. I've been in relationships that have fallen apart though. I see that they still can make it work which invests me.

I'll then go to the acting. I thought that Krusiec does a good job as Claire. She fits the role and I believe her performance. I also connect with her and seeing how broken she is as I've also dealt with depression in the past. There is an unbearable weight on her shoulders that she isn't ready to remove. We see that as the movie goes. Kirby is good as her husband. I feel bad for him having been in a similar spot as him with where he stands. Grace is solid as the daughter. I like Cacia and Wroe as her parents. Mercedes Manning, Stanley and the rest of the ghosts are good. I'll be honest, there are some creepy things with them that we get. That worked for me. Overall, I'd say the acting was solid across the board.

To end this out, I'll go over the filmmaking aspects. I think that the cinematography is good. This movie is shot well. We do some good things with the camera angles. I like how scenes will change when Claire is dealing with the ghosts. That adds an interesting element for me. I would say that the effects were fine. The practical effects were good to the point where at least one made me cringe. I give credit for that. There is some CGI though that wasn't so good unfortunately. That hurt it slightly. Other than that, I'd say that the soundtrack was fine. It didn't necessarily stand out, but I do think they did some solid things with the sound design that I will credit.

In conclusion, this movie does interesting things. We get something that we've seen before with mixing haunting with social work. It makes for predicament that adds tension. I'd say that acting is solid as were the filmmaking aspects like the cinematography and effects. The title also has interesting concept in that ghosts are living in limbo like Claire is with her life. There was some CGI that didn't work for me. This movie is too long as well. I think that fifteen to thirty minutes could be trimmed to make this run tighter. With how it stands, I still enjoyed this movie and what it did. This is just over average for me. Tweaks to things and we could have had something here.

My Rating: 6 out of 10.
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2/10
Terrible...just terrible.
erinlawrie-578364 March 2022
Look, the movie had potential - despite being a bit of a rip off of The Sixth Sense. Unfortunately though, the script needed tightening, the directing was awful and the acting was sub par...and that's being kind. Horror is my absolute favourite genre, but this movie was so slow and excruciatingly dragged out that I couldn't watch it in one sitting. It blows my mind that people are giving it good reviews, especially considering the amazing horror movies that have come out in the past 10 years.
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3/10
A lesson in abysmal film editing
eternitycomplex27 August 2023
Want a quick lesson in how to take an otherwise competent film and flush it down the toilet with bad editing? THIS IS IT.

I don't know if the editor or directors deserve the blame. Enough coverage should be shot that an editor can sculpt the film to a watchable pace.

Almost every single shot in this movie exists on screen 2-3x longer than it should. Every single shot becomes a form of torture for a the progressively more disinterested viewer.

Oh but "the tone" you say, "the TONE". The tone of this film is boring. A director needs to work exceptionally hard to create characters and intriguing situations that would warrant the long, drawn out shots this film asks the audience to tolerate.

What a shame because scattered throughout the film are some truly memorable and unnerving horror moments. Ruined by the fact that the creative forces either couldn't or wouldn't trim the fat and edit it down to a reasonable 1hr30m run time.
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3/10
Heed my warning
Alright guys, I'm going to attempt to keep this short... and maybe not so sweet. As a lover of indi horror and someone who acts in them as well I'm going to try to keep in mind that saying our mothers taught us... while also being honest.

This movie was unsuccessful with very few positives in my opinion. The dialogue was uncomfortably contrived, abrupt and with zero tact. It almost felt like it was written by an AI. The acting was wooden and very stilted across the board. The main girl, while successful in some high intensity emotional scenes, had a particularly stilted performance along with the father and the abusive mother. The only actor that stood out positively to me was the old lady in the hospital. But again, how much did they really have to work with being handed a script like THAT.

The editing and progression of plot was so disjointed and jumpy it almost felt like it was not in chronological order, despite the few flashbacks. I found myself many times going... wtf is going on... The movie as a whole was wildly too long as well. So many unnecessary and drawn out scenes. Should have been 85 min max.

Many of the horror effects were successful and looked pretty good, even though the movie was riddled with cheap jump scares. I also found myself liking the score and sound design throughout as well. The quality of picture was nice too, the movie looked pretty professional.

I started to regret my decision about 20 minutes into the film and by an hour in I wanted to turn it off. However I mustered through the last hour to find a moderately interesting yet not particularly original twist that didn't go much of anywhere. This movie is plagued with cliches, questionable performances and far too long of a run time leaving it at a 2.5 for me. Rounding down to a two feels harsh so I'm going to go ahead with a three, but if I'm perfectly honest I would not recommend this one...
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