This is a movie review, so beware of mild spoilers. I won't go nuts, but if you want to be totally unspoiled, skip it!
Synopsis: A kid goes missing, causing his brother to go nuts, attempt suicide, and get committed. Once his brother is stable enough to be back at home, he begins to hear strange things, then see strange things, and then mystery ensues.
Scariness Type: Jump scares and general ghosty creepiness around.
Rating: 4/5 Lighters.
Awarded: 2nd Place in Most Depressing Movie Featuring Ghosts (just behind
The Sixth Sense).
Good Stuff: Boy, mystery does ensue. There is a lot to piece together, and for a good portion of the movie, new clues are intertwined with new questions. I spent a lot of time just wondering which characters were actually alive, which is always a good sign unless it's because of their acting. The movie also looks and sounds good - it's got acting and whatnot like people like.
Bad Stuff: It's very slow, especially the first half hour which could've been boiled down to one scene: "This guy misses his brother and feels guilty." Many many shots of him moping around about that. Then ultimately all that mystery that the movie is so full of doesn't lead to that interesting of a conclusion, or a very dramatic climax. But it's pretty solid. Oh, the final 'big twist' didn't seem like much of a twist either, since I had been shouting the thing they revealed all along.
Classic Rules Of Film: I actually have a good thing to put here, but saying it would be a total spoiler. It's a different type of rule even, not the gun-going-off stuff! Oh well, watch the movie, then we'll talk.
My Take: I was pleased. As I mentioned
The Sixth Sense above, this has a lot in common with that in terms of tone and pace and style. It also has the mystery of what ghosts are asking for and all that. It's a good movie. Quite depressing, and it almost jerked a tear from me, so it really does a good job showing people truly feeling a loss.
Artistic Nonsense: In good genre fiction (I don't know why "genre" by itself means fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, but it does. Maybe because those are the only genres worth paying attention to!), what it all boils down to is a totally human story that just uses the trappings of magic, ghosts, or rocket ships to get you intrigued enough to pay attention to the feelings. This movie of course has crime stuff and ghost stuff, but none of that actually matters to what it's truly about. It's about the sadness of losing a child. I don't really know that it can teach you anything as a result, it's more like just "Boy, this is pretty crappy, huh?" Like it's commiserating with you, if you've dealt with the same stuff. Or rubbing it in your face. I wouldn't want to see this movie if I had had similar experiences!
Tomorrow's movie is
Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Undead. That should be interesting. P.S. In WoW, my friend and I made a pair of Tauren Death Knights named Holsteincrantz and Guernseystern that adventure together (actually, they're slightly modified versions, because both those names are one character too long for WoW). See, they're death knights, so they Are Dead! They're Undead too, but that's a separate issue, we named them for more classic reasons before I ever knew this movie existed. Boy, we never play those two. Ever. That's sad.
