Waste of time
This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place
View MorePerfectly adorable
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
View MoreI decided to watch this movie based on its description. It seemed like an interesting movie. Digging into your past is usually a good thing, so why not? The ambiance of this movie is good enough. Lighting is good, even in dark scenes. Colors really set the mood in this one. Sound was also good, as well as the music to set the mood. The acting was great and quite believable.The storyline was also good. You have a woman who goes home to the location of a horrible car accident that has traumatized her in order to make sense of life. They did a good job letting the audience get to know the main character, as well as other main characters. The flaw in the storyline is there is no explanation for her supernatural ability to see what her sister has seen. I wish they would've explained that in more detail.This movie did not trigger a lot of emotion for me but it was entertaining nonetheless. I felt bad for the main character and especially for her burned up sister. If you have time after an evening of PvP'ing in World of Warcraft, pop in this video and enjoy!!
View MoreChristy Wescott (Nora Zehetner) has spent most of the past six years of her life in under medication. On her 14th Birthday she goes on a joyride with her older sister Vanessa (Carly Pope), which goes awry. Christy survives the crash unharmed, but Vanessa breaks her legs only to be engulfed by flames. Miracously she survives and falls into the loving arms of her husband Dr. John Locke. For six months Vanessa fights for her life, amongst others for her daughter, Amy, but ultimately dies of a heart attack. At the funeral Christy has visions of Vanessa being buried alive and is quickly diagnosed as demented. Years have passed, Christy has tried to move on but visions still occur. A funeral in her home town forces her to revisit her past... All in all not a bad watch. Sometimes it even goes outside the box and even though you know the mystery miles before it is officially resolved it does keep you enticed. The movie does however have its significant flaws, including illogical motives and behaviours of movie characters. The ending is especially unsatisfying with some serious inconsistencies.It does however end on a high note, even if it had to make some blunders to get there. Nonetheless a decent horror flick with little to none gore and a couple of scares. Superficial, but doesn't fully deliver its promises.
View MoreAnyone who is nitpicking at this movie over ridiculous things such as "do school websites list past students' phone numbers" and "this character would've/should've/could've not let the younger sister drive" should be ignored.Films are made for viewers willing to allow the film to take them where it will. If the film is imperfect, the real film lover will still attempt to see it for what it wanted to be; for what it's actual *point* was. That is, of course, assuming there is one.On the other hand, there will always be the wannabe Sherlock Holmes of film fandom, who will pick at the silliest details as if a movie somehow needs to be a fully provable mathematical truth.Silly.On to the film.I must say, it is a typical thriller with horror elements taking place in a typical old house with typically hidden "creatures" and such, where the main character attempts to uncover a mystery until in the end -- surprise. If you want to understand what this film's atmosphere is like, think of "A Tale of Two Sisters" and "The Others" (with Kidman).Is the movie super-successful at what it does? I wouldn't say so. I will say, though, that it was certainly not a failure either. In fact, "willing viewers," as described above -- in other words, those viewers who have managed to retain their childlike sense of wonder and innocence when they sit down to watch a film -- should be left completely unaware until the final revelation.And let me tell you, mate, if you have any kind of compassion for the characters you see on screen and think the value of cinema lies partly in you allowing yourself to become emotionally involved with them (as opposed to analyzing their every action like some goofs will inevitably always do), you will be horrified at the ending. Bleedin' horrified. Not that it's particularly "scary" in the typical horror film sense, but because of the human suffering and injustice involved.Ignore the yapping cynics and enjoy this perfectly acceptable entry into the spooky-family-in-an-old-house-with-a-dark-secret roster. However, allow me to still add that that if you are looking for a movie along this theme and want one that is *really* well done, watch "A Tale of Two Sisters" instead.
View More***WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***"An honest life ends in a peaceful death" Proverb."Beneath" is a horror flick released straight to video and marks the directorial debut of Dagen Merrill, co-written with Kevin Burke (who also wrote 2003's "Tahiti", an indie drama that earned some critical praise).Christy Wescot (Nora Zehetner, "Brick") is a 20-year-old pre-med student who cannot fully live her own life since her older sister Vanessa (Carly Pope, "Sandra Goes to Whistler") was killed in a car accident six years earlier, in which Christy was driving. "Give me the wheel! Christy!" could have been the last words she remembers from her sister, who was also a young mother and the wife of John Locke (Matthew Settle), a local doctor in the town of Edgemont.The sudden death of family caretaker Joseph (Don S. Davis) prompts a phone call from John to Christy informing her that the funeral services will be held next Saturday. This phone call releases the latent anxiety Christy has been suppressing for the past six years. So when Christy jumps aboard a bus, she's already been fired from her job and is in need of antidepressants for a diagnosed borderline personality disorder spurred by her guilt over her sister's injuries. "Why did you go away?" her niece Amy (Jessica Amlee) asks her. Christy sardonically replies, "I went to prep school" (University of South California). Now Christy's niece lives in the Locke family home with dad and her grandma, the ominous Mrs. Locke (Gabrielle Rose), whom her cute red-haired granddaughter calls a "weirdo", and she is indeed, since she disappears from the dinner table and prefers to eat alone in her place. Amy is convinced a dark, mysterious thing killed good ol' Joseph and that Grandma is mean and secretive. Nora Zehetner maintains a mesmerizing tension from the very beginning. When she contemplates her arrival home to the small town from which she's been disconnected for a long time but has never severed her ties to, she does an awe-inspiring job of conveying Christy's conflicting emotions. And this is one of the main reasons the film succeeds, because its plot devices rely basically on our empathy for the lead character. There are moments that as a viewer we can notice the story would dry up if Christy couldn't find a new clue, a new clear thought, an accusatory gaze from some of the townspeople who have become strangers to her. She finds it difficult to reconnect with a junior high school friend, Debbie Houston (Nicola Anderson) and the townsfolk try to make her move on. Christy must not only hide the pain of her lonely existence and the hallucinations that plague her, she also has to face the humiliation of condescending treatment from the neighbours, nurses, and cops around her; though one of them, Jeff Burdan (Warren Christie), is pretty kind to her, his cop pal Randy (Patrick Gilmore) makes a cruel remark before being introduced to Christy.Christy investigates some circumstances that occurred during the six months of rehabilitation that Vanessa received in Locke's home immediately after the accident, a losing battle against a certain death. Christy finds out this rehabilitation took place in a room beneath Locke's house where Vanessa was attended by a nurse named Claire Wells (Eliza Norbury) whom supposedly left town and moved to Portland, Maine. Christy also investigates the details about Vanessa's burial, as well as her medical files (which are now in private access for John Locke), all the while succumbing to near psychotic states when she suffers random seizures that lead her to draw darkly artistic portraits of people and threatening symbols. The laid-back manner of the townspeople grate on Christy's nerves as they stubbornly deny her suspicions regarding her sister's death. Christy is constantly perceived as an unstable, meddling girl, which fits these simple-minded locals struggling in a post-mining economy ruled by Locke's dynasty.But as another character says to Christy at the beginning of the story, "Death is always hardest on the living." And this obsession with her sister's death makes the heroine's lunatic mind spin frantically like a profaned coffin. "It lives in my walls. I hear it crying". "I take pictures 'cause I can't draw", Amy says.Passageways designed for escaping the mines, locked entrances, insects-plagued basements will confuse us as much as they confuse Christy in her confused mental state; the film is soaked with the romantic, timeless beauty of Nora Zehetner, whose performance as an isolated young woman with a precipitous imagination elicits our innate sympathy and conquers our hearts in the end. Zehetner's Poe-like heroine maybe is a paraphrenic without love life but she's the last voice standing against the apathy and lack of conscience that the town represents. Christy awakens our sedated morals, defending her right to unmask her tortured soul, a beautiful, vulnerable but never weak, Miss Lonely in the land of guilt". http://jake-weird.blogspot.com/2007/08/beneath.html
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