Seance (I) (2021) User Reviews

aggressively middling

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 17 October 2021]

A prank at the all-girls boarding school Fairfield Academy leads to the death of a student named Kerrie. The prank seems to have brought out a real supernatural spirit. The death is assumed to be a suicide. New student Camille Meadows (Suki Waterhouse) arrives to take over Kerrie's room. She gets into a fight with the clic of girls involved with the prank and they all get detention. While in detention, they decide to perform a seance to contact Kerrie.

It's all very average and middling starting with lead actress Suki Waterhouse. The story, the location, and the filmmaking are all middling. It's not actually scary although it's a little spooky. The twist is not shocking as much as it's a relief that it makes sense. The mystery is the same. I'm just glad that it's not completely stupid but the reveal is a long information dump.

Good Ingredients, Bad Execution

[maisyskinner · 5/10 · 10 October 2021]

A new student at a posh boarding school moves into the room of a student who died under mysterious circumstances and starts to feel like her spirit is haunting her and that her killer might still be out there.

Seance has the atmosphere down pat, but it's filled with an assortment of uninteresting and unrelatable characters who either grate on the nerves or who are so dull they blend into their surroundings. The suspense scenes aren't handled with much care either and they never surprise, shock, or keep the audience on the edge of their seats. There's an attempt and livening up the film during the finale, but it's too little too late by that point.

A slasher set on an understaffed Boarding School & very limited location

[sanjidparvez · 6/10 · 22 May 2021]

Not bad for a slasher but the ending was kind of meh or typical. As a film set on a boarding school for girls, it looked severely understaffed, using very limited location & small set of characters. I think it mostly for their budgetary limitations but it looked quite odd at times.

Why Did I bother

[marcusdavis40 · 1/10 · 2 October 2021]

I just watched this last night because my girlfriend wanted to watch it. Total rubbish .My question is how did this trash get the green light to be made in the first place ? This was like a wannabe slasher horror flick .All the characters were like stereotyped . It was'nt even scary and what the hell happened towards the end ? The fight scene ? All of the sudden these millennial teen types are busting kung fu karate moves .Total crap.

A nearly 30 year old posing as a high school student?!

[Frankiesupafly · 3/10 · 30 September 2021]

No, just no! I'm sorry but as youthful as Suki Waterhouse looks, at almost 30 years of age (she'll be 30 on Jan 5), she is NOT a credible teenager. Come on! We forgave 'Grease' for casting 30 year old's as teenagers, and that was decades ago, surely the cast directors/producers could have cast someone in their late teens or early 20's, there's so many talented English actors that would have been so much better suited for this role!!!

Stick with it till the end!

[kelvynchin · 7/10 · 24 May 2021]

Girls in a haunted dance academy are dying or being murdered in alarming numbers in this carefully calibrated movie by Simon Barret. When a student in Edelvine academy apparently commits suicide by jumping out her window after a prank gone bad, her replacement Suki Waterhouse is plagued by ghostly sightings. The girls conduct a seance and a ghostly presence emerges. Pretty soon, the body count starts climbing. Pic seems slack on the atmosphere and chills, despite it's "suspiria" inspired setting. Suki Waterhouse gives a sly performance (all deadpan line deliveries) , and the dreamy synth like score adds to the odd, off-kilter atmosphere. But viewers patient enough to sit this through will be rewarded by a great ending - when everything finally makes sense, especially Ms Waterhouse's cool performance.

Slow and frustrating

[martin-perfumedgarden · 2/10 · 25 October 2021]

Original story but no character development, Lame acting, no chemistry amongst the actors and zero scare factor. Acting is horrible and easily forgettable.

Surprisingly entertertaining

[IzzyMaeDoorite · 8/10 · 21 May 2021]

Seance is a quick-witted, all-female slasher that tricks us into thinking it's nothing but another supernatural thriller. Written by Simon Barrett (You're Next, The Guest), it's also his full-lenght directorial debut, and V/H/S/'s co-creator had definitely succeed in developing a lot of thrills and a little bit of laughs.

Suki Waterhouse shines as Camille, the new student with a heavy background which she effectively uses during the climax. Marina Stephenson Kerr (Channel Zero, Cult of Chucky), a Canadian horror's hidden gem, is also worthy of mention, although her Mrs. Landry could be much more useful that the script allowed her. The original soundtrack composed by Sicker Man gives a terrific wibes and is overall a great addition to the hipnotic cinematography

The nicest thing in Seance is that its characters don't lack motivation, unlike in many and many other slashers and horror movies in general. It's a fun thrill ride that exploits genre cliches and jumps above viewers' expectations which is always a good thing to see.

Not groundbreaking, but not a bad movie ...

[Wikkid_Gamez · 7/10 · 22 May 2021]

... As long as you don't mind that it's similar to other movies like it, kind of a mash-up of several different horror sub-genres... Without posting any spoilers I can't go into detail, it is predictable even with the extra twist at the end. I didn't realize that the director was also the writer until I got on here to post a review and read the other review.

The overall quality is really decent, I was pleasantly surprised. The acting is good, the score is good and not overbearing. The writer/director is good, I am not familiar with him but would be open to seeing more from him.

Is it an original idea? No. However, that in itself is nearly an impossible feat now days. However, it's not a remake that I am aware of so it does have originality in that aspect. It is a fairly slow burn, but kept a steady pace with enough happening to hold my attention. Not gory or high tech (thank goodness! I know my CGI rant gets old). They kept it classic, clean and believable using mostly the actors, ambiance/mood building and some blood thrown in for good measure. A good space/time filler for a horror movie marathon with friends. I would not recommend it to those that need the gore factor to enjoy a movie. If you can appreciate slower, more psychological, mood builders with small, well executed jump scares here and there and minimal blood/carnage then you will be fine. I personally enjoyed this movie.

Clean as far as no sex or nudity, there is a girl/girl kiss at the very end if that is bothersome to some - for those with kids. There is a lttle blood spatter but nothing gory. Could be creepy, possibly scary for children under 12.

It's not like "The Craft"

[funnycommentor · 2/10 · 28 October 2021]

The plot of the movie is ok. The characters are so annoying and so badly written. The location is basic. I have noticed that many reviews and comments say that this movie is a "The Craft" wannabe. Eventually, it has nothing to do with "The Craft". It's more of a murder-mystery movie. In my opinion, the execution wasn't nice, most elements of the movie were basic and usual. Nothing innovative. Also, most of the kills were off-screen, which made the movie worse. Only the last 2 kills were so brutal and nice. Moreover, the killer's motives were so silly and they didn't make sense. Anyway, in my opinion the trailer makes you have high expectations about the movie, but, when you are finally watching the movie you realise that it's awful.

Watchable But Average Teen Horror Fluff

[flowerstardust1979 · 5/10 · 31 May 2021]

The only thing that made this watchable was Suki Waterhouse. It's an average teen mystery of the horror genre. I wasn't bored, it was a watchable time passer for a Sunday night. Held my attention. I did find some of it predictable, I predicted the reveal, maybe others won't. Was it scary? No. Was it intriguing? Yes.

If you like this type of thing and have nothing else to watch, stick it on as an okay time passer.

pleasantly anachronistic

[A_Different_Drummer · 7/10 · 21 May 2021]

Writer-director Barrett has some serious skills when it comes to scripting and camerawork, but he chooses to hide them behind styles and tropes that are somewhat out of time. The only valid criticism of SEANCE is that, if you ran it through a B&W filter, you would end up with something that would be completely appropriate (and well reviewed!) for a theatrical release from the 1960-1965 era. For the wild youth of today, however, woke or not, the subtle movements in the storyline may however fall a little flat.

worth a watch.

[petepiano · 5/10 · 28 May 2021]

Worth a watch this one, supernatural slasher, tidy little twist, sadly genuinely scary horrors are few and far between, sit back and enjoy it for what its worth..

Good enough for a slasher nowadays

[PedroPires90 · 6/10 · 10 June 2021]

Maybe 3/4 too many songs and I was not totally conviced by the performance of the love interest of the main character, however this is a brilliant film, a celebration of different cultures with a common identity and the power/importance of the immigrants in a country. Very good performances by the majority of the cast (don't sleep in some of the oldest ones), very well directed and edited, with great choreographies in every scene. A filme with more than one message and all were delivered pretty well.

This is cinema, even for someone who usually doesn't love musicals.

Tedious, slow paced, uneventful and boring...

[paul_haakonsen · 3/10 · 29 August 2021]

Sure, when I sat down to watch the 2021 horror mystery movie "Seance", I can't claim that I was harboring much of any high hopes or expectations to the movie. Why? Well, the premise of it and its synopsis just made it seem like it was going to be another one of those a dime a dozen standard young adult horror movies.

But still, giving writer and director Simon Barrett the benefit of the doubt, since it was a movie that I hadn't already seen, I sat down to watch "Seance".

And I gave up on it shortly after crossing the halfway mark. Man, talk about a trivial and generic horror movie. Everything that transpired within the storyline of "Seance" is stuff that has been done and seen in countless other horror movies, and quite often done and seen better in other movies. So yeah, "Seance" wasn't all that and a bag of potato chips.

The storyline, aside from being generic, was incredibly slow paced and uneventful. So it was quite a struggle and an ordeal to sit through this movie and find even just anything remotely enjoyable.

Well, that was not entirely true, because the acting performances put on by the cast in "Seance" was actually quite good, especially when taking into consideration that the actresses and actors just about had virtually nothing to work with in terms of a proper storyline, interesting characters or anything else for that matter.

For a horror movie then writer and director Simon Barrett was off the mark by miles. There was absolutely nothing scary about the movie. Well, not unless you count sitting through a rigid and wooden storyline as being scary.

If you enjoy horror movies, do yourself a favor and give "Seance" a wide berth. It just simply isn't worth the time, money or effort.

My rating of "Seance" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Pleasantly surprised!

[tomqcollins · 7/10 · 25 May 2021]

I only pirated this film because it showed up in the catalog at a torrent site and isn't available to stream or in theaters in my area.

All in all I really enjoyed it. The score was great, really liked the creative choice in music and it set the perfect tone for a genre bending mystery/slasher/haunting story.

The acting was just fine and the cast of all female leads were mostly easy on the eyes.

Direction was first rate and the plot kept me interested enough to stick through to the end. With a short-ish run time of about an hour and a half, this film didn't try to be too much or cram any extraneous nonsense in.

Rating: 7.5 for entertainment value and that's about the highest rating I'll give for a movie that isn't super original so it's not a knock on it at all. Ignore the sub-5 star reviews as they were clearly going in with completely unrealistic expectations.

Not that great to be honest.

[deloudelouvain · 5/10 · 1 December 2021]

After a rather promising beginning, if you don't count the cliché "boarding school has his bunch of bullies and one stands up against it", the plot is getting more boring towards the end. I can't say I'm really thrilled about Sceance after watching it. It's all been done before and much better to be honest. The acting was decent, nothing more, but the story felt short. The horror scenes are very mild, not worth mentioning. It's all low budget, just like the quality.

Supernatural slasher

[Gordon-11 · 23 May 2021]

This film is interesting because it starts off as a supernatural film, then becomes a slasher. The gore gets over the top in the end that it becomes funny.

A séance, a joke or an awakening?

[frank-liesenborgs · 6/10 · 25 October 2021]

Séance, the directorial debut of horror screenwriter Simon Barrett (not taken into account the directing of a couple short movies) looks great. Simon Barrett is mostly known for working with Adam Wingard and the writing of You're Next, V. H. S,V. H. S 2,Blair Witch (2016) Dead Birds and The Guest.

It's pleasantly filmed (eight different locations) and the acting is mostly good, to my surprise. Disclaimer, I went to see the movie with no high expectations at all. And extra credits for Suki Waterhouse. Without her the movie would definitely have been different and probably in a negative way.

Another surprise was that the script and the story were standing out from the same genre horror movies. Yes, it starts as a typical haunted high school movie but Séance is adding a couple of twists. And the latter is what makes the movie a better slasher than others.

The moral of the story is not to mess with the dark arts and for sure do not mess with uniformed or dressed up teenage girls.

Questionable casting or extended highschool?

[108YearsOld · 2/10 · 23 June 2021]

Do you think most of them really appear to be highschool students?? The female lead looks pretty much a grad student, and that Asian Yvonne looks maybe 40?? Questionable casting or girls are in extended highschool?

Eh

[staciarose20 · 4/10 · 8 October 2021]

All the clique girls deserved to be offed one by one.

Atmospheric spooky mystery

[jmbovan-47-160173 · 7/10 · 2 October 2021]

Typical boarding house with mean girl cliche starts the film, with new girl arriving and upsetting the dynamic. But, was a supernatural legend awakened right before the new student arrived? The movie unfolds with a supernatural sense to the deaths, but what is happening isn't fully clear. Good acting (if a bit annoying given the tropes of adolescent "mean girls") and decent plotting made this an enjoyable watch for me. It isn't outright scary exactly, but the mystery adds to the atmosphere and helps the spooky aspect be present but not overwhelming.

Future rifftrax material

[deadforhope · 2/10 · 4 August 2021]

Ok everything about this movie is bad especially the casting one of the students is 44 yr old Asian playing a high school student the dialogue is hilarious the story is interesting enough to keep you interested but all in all it will be a rifftrax movie in 5 years.

watchable with decent cast

[surfisfun · 7/10 · 31 May 2021]

Nothing new.

Main lead charismatic.

Lack a bit of intensity.

Recommended.

Cheers.

Standard Horror Tropes Mangled in Poorly Constructed Jumble

[jdowney-57-371157 · 4/10 · 24 October 2021]

Begin with an elite all-girls academy. There is a clique of cool girls. There is a bee-ach ring leader, a nerd or two, a token black chick. A token Asian chick. Seance...call forth something evil. Pretty young girls die taking showers and walking home down darkened paths one by one. OK. That sounds familiar.

First girl that dies is suddenly replaced by an outsider....who of course is there for a purpose. OK. That sounds familiar.

Next Step...is there a Ghost, or is this a deranged serial killer slashing hot young school girls?

Throw in the brooding young hot guy caretaker who befriends the girl, and an tough as nails old School Principal to keep everyone in line, as she tries to protect her Academy from the scandal of each seemingly disconnected accidental death.

You as a horror viewer should be pretty comfortable with all this. What goes wrong?

Really dumb arbitrary things. Immediately at the point where the diminishing cadre of young murder victims decides together that yes...indeed...there is actually a ghost doing this, the ring-leaders buddy says..."No you guys all go on, I'm going to the empty dance room to practice dancing alone in the dark for a while". I mean...seriously?

And ultimately that is what happens to this story. The School Principal just disappears and has nothing to do with anything at the end. The explanation for the killings just seems contrived and somewhat random. Oh...that's why. For unexplained reasons the main character seems to be armed and trained...except she keeps getting her butt kicked. Then...ya...she was 'a close friend' of the dead girl growing up...so that is how she stole an identity that gained her entrance to an exclusive school that somehow was magically financed because she was some kind of butt-kicking person for some reason. And....well...there was a ghost...I guess it was the ghost of her friend...not the first ghost after all.... and then she turns out to be gay and lets her newest friend know that she will come back to her, so the best concept of the movie, two superhot model looking chicks being gay with each other never happens....which shows us a bigger problem, the point of a teenage girls getting slashed movie is to titillate us with sexual innuendo that is juxtaposed as the killer's motivation for revenging all that hormonal sin of these young girls.

I can't argue with the idea that the cast is all a little too adult for their roles, but that didn't bother me as much as the two good guys....are played by two girls that are bean-pole models. They can't act and they seem like bored 30 year-olds hoping to break into movies.

Confused story, weak acting and cast, direction fine. At the lower end of this genre.