Film Review: A HAUNTING AT SILVER FALLS (2013)

There is nothing simple about living in Silver Falls as Jordan (Alix Elizabeth Gitter) will soon find out when she is forced to move there to live with her aunt and uncle in the film A Haunting at Silver Falls (2013).  Jordan’s parents have both recently died and she has been placed in the home of her Aunt Anne and Uncle Kevin (Tara Westwood and Steve Bacic, respectfully).  What puts Jordan on edge even more is the fact that her aunt and mother were twins and so she is constantly reminded of the death of her mother.  Her only escape is with her classmate Larry (James Cavlo) who she immediately takes a liking to. 

When Larry takes Jordan to a party she mistakenly finds a ring in the woods and puts it on her finger not knowing that it won’t come off no matter how hard she tries to remove it.  It’s not long before she starts experiencing strange things and seeing images of twin dead sisters who begin haunting her and who are connected to the ring on her finger.  With the help of Larry, Jordan must find out what the ghosts of these two girls want and if she can solve the mystery before everyone around her thinks she’s become unsettled and crazy.

This is a film that could have gone south really quickly as do many haunted and ghost films but it is anchored by some pretty good performances by the cast all around and a story that doesn’t go where most people expect it to.  It’s actually a pretty good film that’s well done and not a time waster but may go under the radar because of the generic title and the fact that the ghost and paranormal genre is so cluttered with films (it took me a while to finally get around to it).

Film Review: THE BELL WITCH HAUNTING (2013)

There have been a lot of Paranormal Activity knock-offs over the last several years since that film became its own enduring franchise.  The Bell Witch Haunting (2013) is a subpar knock-off of a far more superior film.  Brandon Sawyer (Andrew Hellenthal) is an inspiring young film maker whose family has just moved into a new home.  Unbeknownst to them the house that he and his family have moved to once belong to the Bell Family which is ground zero for numerous hauntings. 

When his sister starts acting strangely, Brandon decides to start filming her and the rest of the family in hopes of discovering what is really going on with his family. At first it’s just a simple film but when his sister starts having violent nightmares and his friends start showing up dead the situation becomes dire as he realizes that there may be no escape from what is haunting him and his family.

Unfortunately for this film that it gets off with a rocky start and never recovers.    Directed by Glenn Miller (uncredited) the film is done in the style of a found footage film using camcorder, security cameras, video blogs, and police cameras.  Everything is thrown into the mix to keep you interested in the characters but the characters simply are not interesting and the plot meanders with very little direction especially at the half way point.  The film becomes an exercise in futility.  Now things do pick up in the third at when people start dying and the haunting/possession becomes more apparent but there is nothing new that you haven’t seen before.

One of the biggest travesties in the film is the fact that Brandon catches his first sign of a paranormal incident early on in the film on camera but he never responds to the indistinguishable evidence of the paranormal.  In fact, there are several documented incidents before anyone in the Sawyer family bother to ever take notice.  It all becomes tedious after a while leaving the viewer to believe that the film is compiled of completely incompetent people.

This is not a film with intelligent characters anywhere to be found and if you’re looking for this type of film just stick with the superior Paranormal Activity and its sequels.

Film Review: THE HOUSE THAT WOULD NOT DIE (1970)

The spirits of the dead cannot rest in the made for TV movie The House That Would Not Die (1970) in which Barbara Stanwyck stars as Ruth Bennett who has just inherited a house from a recently passed aunt.  Ruth moves into the house with her niece Sarah (Kitty Winn).  During a house warming party a séance goes wrong and Sarah is suddenly possessed by a mysterious woman with a connection to the house.  As Ruth tries to understand what is going on, Sarah’s mental health declines and a revelation to the house’s original owner is revealed when she comes across a hidden Bible within the house’s walls.  With the help of her neighbor Pat (Richard Egan) and Sarah’s boyfriend, Ruth must discover the truth of the possession before she loses Sarah to an unspeakable evil. 

 

Based on the novel by Barbara Michaels, the screenplay by Henry Farrell does a good job of presenting the material.  Although dated by today’s standards, as a ‘70s film it played to the sensibilities of the time as it explored the séance as a “party favor” and touched upon its ramifications and fears of the time.  There is a very logical explanation to the possession (unlike many such films of today) and it’s even laid out as a mystery to be solved.

Although John Llewellyn Mosey’s direction is flat it works for the film as it doesn’t allow for style to get in the way which many theatrical possession films of today do.  For a TV movie you can do worse than this and although it won’t leave a lasting impression it is a film that shows the ‘70s possession film for what it was.

Film Review: 7 NIGHTS OF DARKNESS (2011)

Six strangers are tasked with spending the next seven nights in a supposedly haunted abandoned asylum with a nefarious history.  This is the premise behind 7 Nights of Darkness (2011).    Compromised of footage the contestants are supposed to be filming each night, the film is a mixture of found footage and regular cinematic techniques as it decides when and when it doesn’t want to adhere to the “found footage” aesthetic in order to “cheat” and get a better angle. 

Each day the six contestants are given a task that they have to fulfill in order to proceed to the next day.  Each successful day brings them one step closer to winning $7 million that will be split among the people who manage to stay till the end of the week.  Despite being locked up in the asylum and given only a single task during the entire day, most of the contestants spend their time playing cards and doing relatively nothing.  All the contestants are strangers from different states with different backgrounds and they have little in common with one another.

Whereas most films of this kind would revel at the chance to explore the location and see what is going on none of these characters are really interested (except for one who is quickly the first person to meet a paranormal fate) and therefore the audience is never really interested.  The film is comprised of uninteresting characters with little to no motivation other than to get rich.  There is no real drive in the characters or the film and even when “spooky” stuff starts to happen the film decides to fall into the tired old trope of having stupid characters do stupid things.

Written & directed by Allen Kellogg the plot is lazy and the direction is uninspired and uninteresting.  There is nothing in the film that hasn’t been done a thousand times before in other mediocre and poor found footage paranormal films.

Film Review: EVIDENCE OF A HAUNTING (2010)

The SPRS (or Supernatural Phenomena Research Society) travels the country solving paranormal cases involving all manner of haunting.  In the film Evidence of a Haunting (2010) the SPRS team has met its match in the tunnels of a community college rumored to be a gateway to hell.  This is a place where they will face their biggest challenge. 

There are many unique ideas to be had in this film such as the most profound being that their team is made up of priest and a spiritualist and they battle the paranormal during the “hour of the dead” (between 3a.m. and 4a.m.), which is the time in which most paranormal activity is at its peak.  The SPRS is always on the clock and you can tell this since the film takes the team through three different investigations.  Written and directed by Joey Evans the film is not horrible as it does have its entertaining moments despite a mediocre cast.   The film suffers mostly from an inexperienced cast who are flat for most of the film but Evans avoids the mistake of most other films of this type which is the MTV style editing with a multitude of different perspectives from a huge cast of characters.  You follow the core members of the SPRS team and you stick with them even during the their off time.

Because of the plethora of other similarly themed films this film will undoubtedly be overlooked and there is very little to recommend it over its brethren but it does make up for its shortcomings by being entertaining when all else fails.