A Brilliant Conflict

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Although the other reviewers of Voices seemed to have liked it, I found this stagebound drama to be a bore. While on a boating vacation, a young boy disappears. He is assumed to have drown. The boy's parents (David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicutt) were making love when the boy wandered off, so a strong feeling of guilt hangs over the surviving couple. Claire, the mother, eventually has to be committed after trying to kill herself. Just out of the hospital, the husband, Robert, has taken her to country to get away. While in the hospital, Claire inherited a country manor. The house is dusty and a dense fog hovers outside the house. However, the atmosphere is more chilly between the couple, who repeatedly reopen old wounds. Then, there is the matter of the voices that Claire is hearing in the house. Is the house haunted or is her illness back or is there something else going on? Admittedly, I started watching Voices thinking it was a horror film, which it is not, but I had a hard time finishing the film, in spite of its short running time. Based on a play, Voices is a talkfest where a couple bickers endlessly until there is a surprise ending, and this one does not seem too surprising any more. Admittedly, David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicutt are both fine and any interest that I had was because of their performances, but, after a while, I just wanted them both to shut up. I will confess to not liking movies (or plays) like this. I did care much for The Pumpkin Eater or Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? either. Viewers with more patience for that type of drama may like Voices more than I did.

****SPOILERS*** Since the couples-Robert & Clair-played by David Hemmings & Gayle Hunnicutt-8 year old son David, Adam Bridge, drowned after slipping off a waterfall at a local river Clair ended up in a mental infatuation suffering from deep depression in feeling that she somehow was responsible for his death. It's now two years later and Clair's husband Robert feels that a weekend in the country will help her overcome her guilt and get her back to normal. Driving to the out of the way mansion in the woods the couple have a near accident on the road due to the heavy fog that unsettles them and has the already unstable Clair want to turn back feeling that it's ,the near accident, an warning of things to come; She couldn't have been more right! Creepy story about a woman-Clair-flipping out of her skull by hearing voices and seeing things that causes her at the time more or less stable husband-Robert-to almost join her. With no heat or electricity as well as running water in the mansion it makes one wonder why Robert would choose this place to help cure his wife's paranoia? constantly hearing voices as well as later seeing people in the place has Clair ready to be re-committed. But Robert wants to cure her in his own way by confronting what's driving her nuts that's soon causing him to lose it as well! ****SPOILERS****After spending an horrific night at the mansion It's finally decided by Robert to go along with his wife's wishes and to leave the place as soon as possible or as the sun comes up. With Robert going to get the car Clair can't wait any longer and runs out of the mansion to meet him. And it's there that the two both meet the fate which they were totally unaware of that brought them there in the very first place!

I got this film because I like David Hemmings. He was just starting to lose his looks at this point. At first I thought, isn't this supposed to be a horror movie? His character seems rather cruel, but not supernatural scary. I thought maybe he was behind the events, trying to drive her mad. The flashbacks to the mental hospital were the most horrible part, I thought. The things they did to people there.... It's not graphic, but just the idea of one's rights being taken away and then some doctor almost experimenting on you.... It seemed too convenient that she would inherit an old house way out in the woods like that. WARNING WARNING, SPOILER HERE: I suspect the people who made Nicole Kidman's "The Others" had seen this film. Also "Beetlejuice"! However, the writer of this story may have been inspired by that Twilight Zone with the three astronauts going thru the motions again and again, I think with Jack Klugman. The time travel aspect did not make sense to me at all.

This movie is quite difficult to locate, which is a shame for horror fans. In the past couple of years, more sophisticated films such as "What Lies Beneath" and "The Sixth Sense" have been giving scary movies a good name. "Voices" is from this class of thriller because it achieves its shocks through the use of story and character interaction, with an ending that leaves you wondering and frightened for days. It is a simple story about a young British couple who want to get away for a short, romantic vacation in a secluded area of rural England. The destination is unfamiliar to both, and the journey there is ripe with dialogue so realistic and ordinary (plain conversation, arguments, reconciliations) that one might initially think "Voices" is an arty, ad-libbed drama as opposed to a horror flick. This mundane aspect is all a ploy to throw the viewer off, however. Once the young lovers find the vacation house, the mood shifts eerily and the sense of something threatening and supernatural surrounds the couple. They become frustrated, confused and hateful towards each other as their romantic weekend slips through their fingers amidst a haunting neither one can identify. The audience are left equally bewildered, because there is no standard, knife-wielding lunatic creeping outside,and there is no demon locked in the cellar. There is merely this sense of accelerating decline in the characters that is fascinating to observe, and we find ourselves needing to know what happened en route that has resulted in this bizarre situation. Ultimately, the final ten minutes of the film answers all of our questions and makes the subtleties we were puzzling over seem more profound...and the couple themselves discover it as we do, with just as much sense of terror.Submitted by Penny Dreadful, Halifax, Nova Scotia.