Category: Horror

Us

Rated: MA15+Us

Directed by: Jordan Peele

Written by: Jordan Peele

Produced by: Jordan Peele, Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Ian Cooper

Starring: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Madison Curry, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon.

‘What do you want?’ asks Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o) of her shadow.

‘What do we want?!’ her reflection, Red replies.

Us is a film of many layers, the use of reflection, of Adelaide talking to herself reflected in a glass window; shadows tethered to bodies, while waving across the sand: ‘Once upon a time, a girl was born with a shadow…’ introduce the folklore of the doppelgänger to create the fear of self as an everyday American family meet their Other selves, while vacationing at their summer beach house in Santa Cruz.

It’s a strange setting for a horror-thriller – going to the beach as a family of husband, Gabe (Winston Duke), wife, Adelaide, daughter, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and son, Jason (Evan Alex); meeting friends, hanging out on lounges, drinking, well husband and wife, the Tylers’ (Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker) drinking while their two teenage daughters Becca and Lindsey (Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon) play in the sand.

And that odd play of normality, just off kilter, sets the tone of the film.

Us is different to what I expected.

I thought I was walking into creeps and super-scary, but for me, I found the film thought-provoking, and sure, suspenseful, lightened by this incredibly dark satire.

Director, writer and producer Jordan Peele states, “Horror and comedy are both great ways of exposing how we feel about things…  The comedy that emerges from a tense moment or scene in a horror film is necessary for cleaning the emotional palate, to release the tension.  It gives your audience an opportunity to emotionally catch up and get prepared for the next run of terror.”

I wholeheartedly agree there’s a close link between horror and humour.  There’s a fine line between the two, tapping into an old part of our brain that can react with fear or laughter, if the moment misses the mark – I’m not afraid of the dark, ha-ha.  To tap into this reaction and include a character like husband Gabe bases the film in normality, because that’s the way people behave: tissue up a bloody nostril, and statement, ‘almost looks like some kind of fucked-up art instalment,’ included.

Winston Duke really nailed the character, Gabe and I appreciated this layer of bizarre humour to lighten the strange – as Jorden states above, to, ‘clean the palate’.

Jordan has managed to tie the normality of the family priority: money, cars, competition in the face of brut survival – like reacting to threat with violence being the most normal thing in today’s world.   Never forgetting how cool it is to own a boat.

The story hangs on this story of a family, of a mother still traumatised by an incident in her past, back in 1986 when she gets lost as a little girl in a Fun Park, where she meets her Other.  And vacationing back in the place of that first incident creates a domino effect of coincidence, until, her family meets…  Hers.

But there can only be one self.  That’s where the horror comes in, with some good blood and guts – yet the film’s not really about the doppelgänger, it’s more about what the doppelgänger represents: evil, the shadow, the end of times:

The verse from Jeramiah 11:11 also a running theme through-out the film:

There thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.

So, did I like the movie?

Honestly, Us wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be.

Yet, the careful handling of timing and layering of complicated ideas and story made a unique viewing experience.  And I kept giggling – strangely, the humour was what affected me the most – while also thinking about the comment made about the ones we’ve abandoned far below the tunnels of ourselves.

Happy Death Day 2U

Rated: MHappy Death Day 2U

Directed and Written by: Christopher Landon

Based on Characters by: Scott Lobdell

Produced by: Jason Blum

Starring: Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Suraj Sharma, Steve Zissis, Rachel Matthews, Charles Aitken, Phi Vu, Sarah Yarkin.

The baby-faced masked killer is back, along with characters from the original, Happy Death Day (2017), including ‘crazy-white-girl’ Tree (Jessica Rothe) who manages to get sucked into The Death Cycle at the end of every day until she figures out who the killer is… again…

What made the original so successful was the character Tree and her self-deprecating, fatalistic dark humour.  We get the same tone here along with the suspense of waiting for the baby-masked killer to strike and the mystery of who’s behind the mask this time.

Christopher Landon has returned as director and writer (based on character by Scott Lobdell, writer of the original), throwing something extra into the storyline because there has to be a reason for the cycle to start all over again.

The clever re-cap gives a backstory for those who missed the first – but I recommend going back to watch Happy Death Day because it makes those moments of Tree reliving the hellish nightmare funnier.  And here, it’s fun to see familiar characters also get sucked into the cycle with a few new nerdy scientists added to explain the new dimension added to the story.

I have to say the ‘dohicky’ knitting Dean Bornson (Steve Zissis) is hilarious.

And here we get Ryan (Phi Vu) meeting his replica with an added touch of sci-fi lifting the sequel into a different space – so it’s the same concept, but the obstacles have changed.  Which was needed to make this a worthy follow-up rather than just more of the same – yeah, excuse the constant puns but can’t seem to help myself after leaving the cinema with a wry grin.

I had a lot of fun watching Happy Death Day 2 U, even getting into the teary dramatic moments of Tree struggling with the death of her mother and the choices she needs to make going forward in her life.

Although, I have to say the push at the end of the film felt tack-on and a too little much.

But there’s twists and turns, romance, suspense (not as much horror as the first though), and good humour making this sequel worth a watch.

The School

Rated: MThe School

Directed by:  Storm Ashwood

Produced by: Clement Dunn, Cathy Flannery

Written by:  Storm Ashwood, Tessa Alana

Starring:  Megan Drury, Will McDonald, Jak Ruwald.

After a visually stunning trailer, I was more then ready to watch The School: an Australian supernatural horror thriller by award-winning director Storm Ashwood.  But I have to admit I was slightly disappointed.

Amy is a doctor, wife and grieving mother. After spending two years by her comatose son, David’s side, Amy falls into her own twisted world of obsession and denial. Blocking out everything and everyone around her while the walls of the hospital she neglects begin to fall apart. She begins to awaken in what seems to be an abandoned old school, where Amy finds herself a prisoner to a hoard of displaced cultish and feral kids trapped in a hostile supernatural purgatory for children.

As the stakes get higher, Amy becomes an unwilling surrogate mother and must try and escape an impending evil. But terror ensues and Amy must find her way out, fighting against the demonic, supernatural creatures and ultimately her very own demons.

Despite the catchy plot and stunning visuals, The School fails to offer a sense of place, making the hospital where her son remains, and her workplace, the same site where a school used to be.

Filmed at the Gladesville Mental Asylum, founded in the late 1830s, the film’s location is also the oldest facility of the kind in Australia. Regrettably, the unusual punishment of its patients was a normality, including the use of electric shock therapy making both patient and employee deaths common.

There are 1,228 unmarked patient graves on-site providing an unsettling place to capture the supernatural horror elements in the film.

Storm Ashwood has led a successful directing career thus far. His short film The Wish was not only nominated for Best Director and Best Script in the SASAs, but was also screened in festivals around the world including The Australian Film Festival, The LA Film Festival, and the most prestigious, The Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival in Paris. Storm was nominated for an AACTA (Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Awards) for best short screenplay as well as having overwhelming success in the festival circuit, with an array of awards and nominations including Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Foreign film and several Merit awards.

His feature film script A Search For Hope was a runner up for the 21st Century ScreenWriting awards in 2007.

Early in 2012 Storm’s feature film script and teaser for THE SCHOOL was included as one of the Top 10 Finalists for the MTV Optus180 project.

Climax

Rated: MA15+Climax

Directed by: Gaspar Noe

Screenplay by: Gaspar Noe

Produced by: Edouard Weil, Vincent Maraal, Brahim Chioua

Choreography: Nina Mc Neely

Starring: Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smily, Clude Gajan Maull, Giselle Palmer, Taylor Kastle, Thea Carla Shøtt, Sharleen Temple, Lea Vlamos, Alaia Alsafir, Kendall Mugler, Lakdhar Dridi, Adrien Sissoko, Mamadou Bathily, Alou Sidibe, Ashley Biscette, Mounia Nassangar, Tiphanie Au, Sarah Belala, Alexandre Moreau, Naab, Strouss Serpent, Vince Galliot Cumant.

A spectacular sensor experience that slowly becomes a disturbing endurance.

‘1996, it was just last night’ – director, Gaspar Noe.

Climax is a horror set to dance music from the 90s where everyone goes insane on very, very bad acid.

This is a film based on a real news story from France.

Daft Punk had just released their first record.  And you could still smoke on the dancefloor.

A troupe of dances finish a rehearsal choregraphed by Selva (Sofia Boutella); DJ Daddy (Kiddy Smile) keeping up the tunes while the dances decompress and party.

We’re brought into this amazing space of dancing and music, with most of the characters made up from the best dances director Gaspar Noe and doll line producer Serge Catoire could find in France (and those who could travel to France): waackers, krumpers, a group of electro dancers and a contortionist (Strauss Serpent) for that extra bizarre movement.

And we watch as the dances drink spiked sangria.

And we watch as each of the characters go insane.

There’s a fascinating introduction to each of the dancers with their audition tapes shown on video so we get this psychological profile before they’re all, well, fu*ked.  So we see who they are normally and how they might react to the LSD: horny, confused, hysterical, paranoid, self-harming, murderous.

And the way the dancers were shown speaking to the camera, the dance-moves shot from above; the spinning…  I was completely absorbed from the opening scene.

But really, prepare yourself, there’s cutting, incest, burning and basically people completely losing it, all in this abandoned school with the music always playing.

I was reminded of scenes from Event Horizon (1997) depicting the crew in space when they went literally through hell.

But Climax is based on real and relatable people.

I was into the film.  Then it became an endurance.  It just kept on getting more and more confronting.

People left during the media screening.

For me, if there was just a shocking end to the crescendo (a climax!), I would have gotten into the film more.  But the timeline was kept linear, showing the decline into madness with each step given its due…  Lower and lower until the camera barely lifted from the polished concrete floor reflecting the animalistic grunting and f*cking and blood.

Climax will definitely evoke a response.

It certainly shocked me sideways.

Music:

TROIS GYMNOPEDIES (ERIK SATIE) by GARY NUMAN  SOLIDIT by CHRIS CARTER  SUPERNATURE by CERRONE  BORN TO BE ALIVE by PATRICK HERNANDEZ  PUMP UP THE VOLUME by M/A/R/R/S  FRENCH KISS by LIL LOUIS  SUPERIOR RACE and TECHNIC 1200 by DOPPLEREFFEKT  DICKMATIZED by KIDDY SMILE  SANGRIA and WHAT TO DO by THOMAS BANGALTER  VOICES by NEON  THE ART OF STALKING by SUBURBAN KNIGHTS  ROLLIN’ & SCRATCHIN’ by DAFT PUNK  WINDOWLICKER by APHEX TWIN  ELECTRON by WILD PLANET  TAINTED LOVE / WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO by SOFT CELL  UTOPIA ME GIORGIO by GIORGIO MORODER  ANGIE by THE ROLLING STONES  MAD by COSEY FANNI TUTTI and COH.

Halloween

Rated: MA15+Halloween

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Written by: David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley

Based on Characters Created by: John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Produced by: Jason Blum, Malek Akkad, Bill Block

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Will Patton, Nick Castle, Andi Matichak, Omar J. Dorsey.

A continuation of the first Halloween (1978), serial killer Michael Myers (Nick Castle), the boogie man, remains behind the walls of Smith Grove Sanatorium.

He doesn’t speak; he’s The Shape.  Without reason he is the ultimate human monster.

And forty years after her last encounter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), now a grandmother (to Allyson (Andi Matichak)), knows he’s a monster.  She has sacrificed her life, losing her daughter (Karen (Judy Greer)) to social services because of her obsession to prepare as she waits and hopes for his release… so she can kill him.

There’s not much more to the story: the monster, the victim turned heroin, the mask.

Director and co-writer David Gordon Green isn’t known for working in horror.  Yet he’s successfully kept the re-boot of this thriller simple yet effective in the telling.

There’s an echo from the original Halloween that gives that 70s tone with the same synth soundtrack and font for title and credits.  It feels like the same film but brought forward in time with a story-line with details giving the film a surprising sharp edge (ha, ha): it’s violent and bloody without getting over cheesy with too much gore.

There’s clever editing and careful shooting never slowing the monster; and a sometime focus on the eyes of the stalked without too much drama.  Just some good old fashion knife-in-the-neck, head stomping, hanging-from-a-wrought-iron-fence-by-the-head horror.

John Carpenter states, ‘I’m excited for audiences to see this.  It is going to scare the shit out of you.  I guarantee it.’

The monster behind the mask is scary because his face is never shown, he’s a mystery.  I still don’t understand why he’s evil and the film doesn’t explore the depths of his psyche, just the statement that fifty clinical psychiatrists assessing Michael each reached different conclusions.

It’s the way the film is shown that’s interesting and the intensity is relieved with some good humour like Michael’s current and long-term psychiatrist Dr. Sartain (Haluk Bilginer) being told to sit still after his patient escapes, ‘I am sitting still, what are you saying?’

And the little dude, Julian (Jibrail Nantambu) being baby-sat (of course) a classic, wanting to be the pretty babysitter’s favourite with some fun dialogue from the writers that I always appreciate in a good slasher movie.

Yet more importantly, there’s a careful piecing together of moments that gives the film a solid driving undercurrent with the relentless pursuit of the masked monster and the equally resilient Laurie Strode determined to exterminate what she can see is pure evil.

Nothing really new with a simple story, yet the blunt and bold telling made me feel like I was re-watching a classic made new.

The Nun

Rated: MA15+The Nun

Directed by: Corin Hardy

Screenplay by: Gary Dauberman

Story by: James Wan & Gary Dauberman

Produced by: Peter Safran, p.g.a, James Wan, p.g.a

Starring: Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons.

After first making her presence known in, ‘The Conjuring 2’, audiences were left wondering where the demonic being, Nun Valak originated.  Here, ‘The Nun’ is set in 1952 in Romania where screen writer Gary Dauberman (“IT,” the “Annabelle” films) explores the beginnings of this force dripping with evil, leaking its way out of the chasm beneath the cloister where nuns worship isolated from the rest of the world.

Director Corin Hardy makes full use of filming in the dark 14th-century castles of Romania, including the Abby of St. Carta, with tunnels beneath the surface creating shadows and inescapable hallways as Father Burke (Demian Bichir), novitiate on the threshold of her final vow, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and local villager Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) investigate the suicide of a nun.

The more they dig, the more horror they find buried beneath the surface (so to speak).

I had high hopes for, ‘The Nun’ after the introduction of this terrifying creature in, ‘The Conjuring 2’ (where many in the audience left because it was so scary!) but instead of the build-up and surprising evolution of terror, here we have moments of panning like pregnant moments in a day-time soap opera.  Instead of building to climax, the moments are just… left…

The flowing shadows of spectres and bell-ringing from graves set the scene and the believable and wide-eyed Sister Irene answered some of our questions about The Nun.  But I was left with more questions unanswered about the murder of nuns who were left murderous without explanation.

I’m glad we weren’t left with a psycho exorcist film which really could have been a focus here, with all the Catholicism and crosses and well, possessed nuns.  But there were red-herrings and loose threads that just didn’t pull the story together well enough to be truly scary.  Long moments left to drift didn’t make suspense.  And the overreliance of the scare-factor of evil nuns made the nuns not so scary.

I liked that there was no digitisation used to create the spectre of The Nun; and there was some clever camera work using a Steadicam for Sister Irene versus handheld for Father Burke.  But there was none of the subtle, corner-of-your-eye moment where The Nun appears like she’s been created out of your subconscious.   So there was that missing creeping under the skin that Wan manages to create with the early instalments of Insidious and The Conjuring series.

Weaving back to the Conjuring verse made The Nun feel more like the Annabelle series than a Conjuring Part 3 – which didn’t make it terrible, just not as good as it could have been.

The Meg

Rated: MThe Meg

Directed by: John Turteaitub

Produced by: Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Belle Avery and Colin Wilson

Written by: Dean Georgaris and Jon Hoeber & Erich Hoeber

Based on: MEG, the bestselling novel by by Steve Alten

Starring: Jason Statham, Li Bingbing.

The depths of the ocean. Unexplored. Unknown. Unconquered. Sound familiar?

I must confess that the scifi premise, used many times before in better and/or smaller productions such as Jaws (1975) or Piranha (1978), intrigue me. While the cast of Jason Statham made me lower my expectations to rock bottom.

>A deep-sea submersible—part of Mana One, an international undersea observation program off the coast of China—has been attacked by a massive creature and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean… with its crew trapped inside.

In the film, Statham plays Jonas Taylor, an undersea rescue diver who was the best of the best before a terrifying brush with a massive creature powerful enough to crush the hull of a nuclear submarine. The traumatic attack took the lives of two friends and put Jonas into voluntary drydock. When Megalodon emerges once again and threatens the lives of Mana One’s crew, Jonas becomes their last and only hope.

I love a big monster movie just like anybody else but I hate when a trailer plays with my feelings as a viewer, teasing a bigger version of the classic Jaws and delivering what’s nothing more than a louder film.

The irresistible combination of over-the-top special effects and a great soundtrack is not enough to scratch the surface of the story. Half way through the film I became more concerned about the fate of the gorgeous little Yorkshire Terrier paddling around the Megalodon than of the weak romance orchestrated between Jason Statham and award winning Chinese actress Li Bingbing.

If there is anything to be afraid of, is that The Meg has become one of the year’s few Hollywood surprise stories, making $45 million in one of the highest debuts of the year. Meaning that more such a films may well be on their way to feast from the box office once again.

Upgrade

Rated: MA15+Upgrade

Directed and Written by: Leigh Whannell

Produced by: Blumhouse Productions, Jason Blum and Goalpost Pictures, Kylie du Fresne

Director of Photography: Stefan Duscio

Starring: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson, Simon Maiden, Benedict Hardie, Melanie Vallejo, Richard Cawthorne, Christopher Kirby and Linda Cropper.

Set in the near future, Upgrade introduces a world where bio-technology has begun its take-over, where being stronger, faster and logical is better than the hands-on approach to fixing cars.

It’s rare that someone like mechanic Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) builds cars, real cars that run on oil and require a steering wheel.  So when Grey delivers his latest creation to billionaire super-tech, Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson), inventor of an Artificial Intelligence implant, STEM (voice over, Simon Maiden), Grey finds a friend in the most unlikely place.

Because, even with all the drones and digital cars Grey and his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) become victims of a contract killing.  Leaving Grey quadriplegic.

Previously anti-digital, it’s technology that allows Grey to track down the people who ruined his life.

Upgrade combines the old-school love story of man-seeking-revenge for his murdered wife with the setting of a world run by technology, the tone reminding me of past films like, The Crow (1994).

Writer and director, Leigh Whannell (creator of Saw and Insidious) notes influences such as, The Terminator (1984) with Arnold Schwarzenegger acting as a cyborg being the special effects and there’s good action here with Logan Marshall-Green as Grey learning specialised movements to make the role of part-man, part-STEM convincing and unique.

But it took me a while to get into the film as the drama felt all too familiar.

Upgrade

The gritty dark alleyways and dripping broken toilets; Grey vomiting when unable to control muscles required to lift his head properly to breath – mixed with futuristic technology like a cloud with flashes of lightening manipulated with human hands made up for some oversights that stretched the believability of the film: atrophied muscles don’t suddenly grow back, even with nerve function.

The visceral action is what made the film for me with handy camera work from Stefan Duscio attaching the camera to the characters, like Grey as he moved around like a crazed ninja robot: the fight scenes well-timed, surprising and bloody.

And adding moments like the stencilled image of robotic arms, fingers extended like horns and Grey in the foreground, in his wheel chair, head slumped, introduced a creative vision, integrating the digital into a world still recognisable as our own.

Although, there’s some good humour that gels the authentic, analogue Grey with his digitized helper STEM, partaking in his life like an alter-ego…  I didn’t absolutely love it, the film a little stilted (dare I say artificial?!) and not always believable.

But there’s great technique here and a well-paced story that lifts a low-budget production past the obvious into a film that successfully pushes the boundaries of the action/sci-fi genré.

A Quiet Place

Rated: MA Quiet Place

Directed by: John Krasinski

Produced by: Michael Bay, p.g.a. Andrew Form, p.g.a. Brad Fuller, p.g.a.

Story by: Bryan Woods & Scott Beck

Screenplay by: Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski

Starring: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds and Cade Woodward.

To put it lightly: A Quiet Place is a horrifically quiet family drama.

And I say drama as there’s two layers to this film: how the old familiar wound of guilt effects a family and the way aliens with supersonic hearing can tear any living creature into pieces, seemingly driven by a mission to exterminate.

The film is made simply, staying with Abbott family; husband, Lee (John Krasinski) and wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) doing everything they can to protect their young children after the devastating arrival of aliens 89 days previous to the opening scene.

The only way to survive is to stay quiet.

The audience is shown again and again what happens when the creatures hear, so there’s this constant tension that doesn’t let go for the entire film.

An unpretentious film, with the focus on the Abbott family and their struggle to survive the everyday, I was on the edge the whole time, jumping in fright more than once (not usual for me), living the terror right alongside pregnant Evelyn (need I say more about trying to keep quiet while giving birth) and Lee and the kids, young kids brought up in a world of silent terror.

What really got me was how Lee and Evelyn tried to keep their family safe and happy – trying to be the best parents in the worst circumstances.  So there’s this emotional attachment because of the outstanding performances of Blunt, who continues to amaze, showing absolute terror but controlled through hard-won courage, and the drive shown by Krasinski as the husband and father to protect his family: heart breaking.

It’s not often I cry in a suspense horror, but this film had all the best of an edge-of-your-seat-scare-fest with a driving soundtrack (Marco Beltrami) and nasty killing, sharp-fanged monsters alongside the reality of a family trying to survive in the worst of circumstances.

The whole cast was just so believable, you could see the fear in their eyes.

And because the characters couldn’t make sound or speak, the music and facial expression to convey emotion was just so much more important – the quiet to the complete absence of sound when focussed on the eldest child, daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds), from her perspective of being deaf changed the whole feeling of the film, like the silence was used to draw you further in so when there was a clash or sudden scare, you could really feel it.

Superficially, a simple story; but the mechanics and thought put into the presentation of the film, the soundtrack, the drama of the family dynamic shown in the facial expressions and eyes of the cast pushed the suspense to maximum.

An impressive film from start to finish.

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Winchester

Rated: MWinchester

Directed by: The Spierig Brothers

Written by: Tom Vaughan and The Spierig Brothers

Produced by: Tim McGahan, Brett Tomberlin

Starring: Helen Mirren, Sarah Snook, Finn Scicluna-O’Prey, Jason Clarke, Angus Sampson, Eamon Farren.

Inspired by true events at the most haunted house in history.

Based on the true story of widower, Sarah Winchester (Helen Mirren), Winchester explores the haunting of a many-roomed house, seven stories high, comprising 500 rooms and stairs that lead to no-where: built, torn-down, to be built again; all orchestrated by the designs of the widower.

It’s enough to question her sanity.

Sarah communes with the dead to make their spirits grow stronger in the rooms she builds, under their instruction; through her visions; through her remorse – to then release them.

Many have died from the firing of a Winchester – the instrument of death the source of her fortune.  And the source of her guilt.

Being the majority holder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, (and a multi-millionaire) the company employs a psychiatrist to assess Sarah’s mental capacity in the view of taking control of her share in the company.

A request agreed upon by Sarah’s niece Marion (Sarah Snook) but only if the psychiatrist conducting the assessment is Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke).

After Marion’s husband dies suddenly, she moves in with her aunt with her 8-year-old son Henry (Finn Scicluna-O’Prey) – an indication in Sarah’s mind that a curse is spreading through the family.

Dr. Price is also a grieving widow, addicted to Laudanum, amongst other substances; anything to numb the pain – and out of desperation and financial difficulty takes the job.  Only to question his own mind when he witnesses the spirits inhabiting this strange house.

All the elements of an interesting story but I didn’t find the film to be a poignant one.

The suspense was weak, left to fall flat off cliff hangers that felt more like an accidental step.

And the over-editing of characters such as builder, John Hansen (Angus Sampson), to the extent of what sounded like dubbing over what was once comic, to be diluted to suit the tone of the film added to the quiet and dry dead like the musty smell in old houses.

All old houses have a presence, particularly those inhabited by the grieving.

When Dr. Price enters the house it just adds another unstable element, throwing doubt on the truth of the story as Dr. Price is also a grieving man, self-medicating and taken from the depths of a sabbatical dedicated to a life of hedonism and clearly desiring anything but clarity: is it any wonder he sees ghosts too?

The flash of spectres was well spliced into the dark recesses of shadows and reflections of mirrors.  But the build of suspense and meat of the story lacked substance so rather than inspiring belief in the supernatural, the film became more a story of a 19th century larrikin sobering up to insanity.

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