Thanks for the memories!
... View Morejust watch it!
... View MoreA story that's too fascinating to pass by...
... View MoreWorth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
... View MoreI have NO bloody idea why this film is rated so damn low. I felt that the psychological elements were excellent and the story very well executed.The interactions with his brother are quite moving and the acting is very good all around. The story is well paced building to a powerful ending, which could very well catch you by surprise. Another reviewer here mentioned that this film was derivative. I didn't see that at all; I thought the story was well conceived and capably directed. I don't normally go for films that are strongly centered on personal Drama, but this one was quite engaging, drawing you along as it gradually reveals what is truly happening.I really cannot see how it possibly could have been done any better...
... View MoreI liked the start of this movie, I really did. It got my attention, and drew me in with a really strong suspense and drama feel of old school horror, supernatural, suspense, psycho murder. I really didn't know which way it was going to go, it could have been really great at just about any twist, the beginning was really that good.But then, it slowed down, just as it should have ramped up. And got more and more convoluted (not confusing, convoluted in a totally boring way), and just finished with this sad, flat, boring sort of end. I wasn't scared, I didn't care about the lead character anymore because I was so bored with him, I just wanted it to end, and it went on and on and on and on... This REVIEW is boring and sucks, and the movie inspired that, it was boring and sucked.
... View More*****MAY CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS****A boy and his father have a difficult relationship and they live together in a small flat in a big high-rise block of ugly, apartments for unliked people, that is alienating and depersonalising. Wasn't there a movement to get rid of these high-rises about forty or fifty years ago? Has society regressed in THIS way ALSO, since Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" came out in 1971?!So, anyway, it is all so sad and depressing. The unlikable teenage boy's younger brother has disappeared while playing in one of the concrete playgrounds attached to these apartments, and there is so much unresolved grief accompanied by unexplained and suspicious circumstances that it is depressing to everyone around them, as well as to themselves, and is associated with anger and violent emotional responses everywhere. And on top of the inhuman architectural depravity there is an overbearing atmosphere of threats of being further degraded by the mental health system, which seems to have goody-goody government and church-employed community-vampires preying on these people - who are being kept like sardines in a human warehouse 24 hours a day - popping in to see if "everything's alright?"; "Are you alright?" being the constantly repeated question in this environment - people nervously checking on each other all the time.Throughout this movie there is a prevailing and constant fear - or paranoia - being expressed, of experiences that are outside of "normal" human experience, so when the boy begins hearing and seeing things that aren't there (from other people's perspectives), he is just one step away from being turned-in, abducted, and kept kidnapped indefinitely, by the local mental hospital. To add to this tension, which gets so bad that his best friend calls him a "psycho" and kicks him out of his flat in paranoid-terror when he turns to him to talk about his psychic experiences, unable to communicate with his father, there is also a widespread adoption of a culture of patriarchal suppression of selfhood, so that everywhere there are people releasing and expressing their personal hangups in violent and difficult emotional outbursts.***POSSIBLE, BUT VERY CRYPTIC SPOILER IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH**** I do think this film has something important to say about society's ills being obviously and intentionally inflicted from above due to unadmitted-to pressures and society's self-censorship. There is also a parallel Christian patriarchal religious dimension - you will see if you watch this movie - in which Christianity (like the mental-health system employees) pretends to be the saviour of the soul, while, in reality, being the disease that it claims to cure and the imprisoner of the soul ... I think the symbolism in this film is talking about evil, per se, and the preying Anglican Church counsellor's use of the fiery inversion of the Christian cross as a symbol of pure evil in the film is an IRONIC inversion, just as is the mental health system claiming to be the saviour of the people that THEY prey upon and whom THEY mentally torture - as human-cargo in THEIR concrete prisons.Into this dismal and claustrophobic setting comes the need for resolution and understanding of what is happening around and to the protagonist; a psychic need for truth and meaning, and a search for a reason, perhaps the identity of a killer or killers; and a need to know the fate of a missing sibling.As social-commentary I do applaud the making of this movie, for its EDUCATIVE value. But it is painful to witness the constant false-angst, this pot, boiling with emotional pain, and the personal hangups that these people maintain through lack of honesty with their own inner-thoughts and their true-identities - the protagonist, himself, is no more than a crippled cardboard cut-out, not a true human being at all! The music in this movie only makes it worse - oh, pull the heartstrings! Why use this awful, crappy and oh, so patronising music?! What are you inflicting it upon us for?! Two other examples I can easily and convincingly suggest, from Britain, are the movie "Flood"(2008) and the new "Doctor Who" (from 2005), and just about every drama, especially made for Australian television (Federal Government-required ocker-brainwashing) made in Australia, such as the recent movie "Sanctum"(2011), which appears to be struggling in torment and agony with issues of paedophilia.But social-commentary alone does not make good entertaining horror-movies, I am sorry. And to make it worse, this movie is blatantly copying the brilliantly original "The Sixth Sense" (1999) - but in a deprived, violent setting, where boys are committed to the pointless, banal, stupid, destructive, malicious and unreasonable obsession and self-deception of proving their manhood, to the mutually assured mental and psychic destruction of every human being in the neighbourhood. So it is both visually and conceptually unappealing, AND repelling, AND, to top it off, derivative. And I found that to be a bad flaw with the ending, which seems to compete with "The Sixth Sense", but, unlike "The Sixth Sense" does not leave you, the audience, with a chilling realization - the ending is more like a one-line twist, a throw-away line that is only MILDLY surprising, and no shock, as it is presumably intended to be, at all.
... View MoreOne of the better movies, that were shown at the Frightfest 2008. This one is pretty grim and might seem confusing at times, but it never loses it's focus/goal. It might have some false scares and some false leads (which may be annoying for some viewers), but it still has a great impact.I also like the fact, that you might not exactly know where this is going. There have been similar movies in the recent past, but still a good down to earth, gritty (shot) movie, is always welcomed (imo). The actors give their bests (some might argue that it's not always convincing, but I think they're doing a pretty good job) and the direction and overall editing is good too.
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