Stimmen

An unsual film. Good first act. Great last act. The middle act, shot on videotape, is essentially one long scene of the two characters arguing, apologizing, and arguing again. It feels very much like a BBC adaption of a stage play, and is relatable but reptetive.

However, stick with it; the scenes of what may be either ghosts or hallucinations become increasingly frightening, leading up to a shocking climax where we find out exactly which they are.

Gayle Hunnicutt's does wonders with her haunted gaze, and the fog-shrouded country house location has a nicely ynderstated atmosphere of isolation and dread.

Comparisons to Don't Look Now are apt; there are also similarities to 2001's The Others.

"Voices" is an exceptionally good and intelligently written ghost story. However, before watching it, I have a warning. The couple in the film (David Hemmings and Gayle Hunnicutt) are very depressed after the death of their son. As a result, she's depressed and angry...and he's just incredibly angry. They obviously are a couple who are in deep pain and while I didn't find the ghost part of the tale scary (it was more interesting than scary), it was tough seeing the pair tearing each other apart during the course of the film.

The movie begins with a couple taking their young son on an outing. They are distracted and the boy drowns. Some time has passed and the couple have decided to go to her summer home for a vacation. However, her emotional instability and his being tired of her emotional upheavals set the stage for a gloomy time. However, when they aren't bickering, she begins to hear children's voices...presumably the voices of dead children. Later, she even sees them. And, eventually, he hears them as well. What is going on here?!

This is a very intelligently written film. Despite the awful relationship between the couple, and it's hard to watch at times, the ending really pulls everything together perfectly. A wonderful and atmospheric movie.

Voices stars David Hemmings and the fantastic Gayle Hunnicutt in a bafflingly poor thriller.

It tells the story of a couple who decide a bit of nookie is more important than watching their young child next to a heavy body of water. Child dies, she loses her mind and after recovering go away together to their country home.

Before you know it she starts hearing voices and the question of whether it's in her mind or if something supernatural is taking place comes up.

Trouble is the movie has no pacing, it's incredibly slow and essentially just about a bickering couple and her grief.

Lifeless, boring and with a twist we've seen before but makes little sense here.

The Good:

Gayle Hunnicutt

The Bad:

Looks like a cheap episode of Dallas

So boring

Finale doesn't make much sense

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I get the impression the creators of The Others (2001) had seen this

A protracted stage play on what looks like low grade videotape bookended by film sequences to remind you what the rest of it should have looked like. Unnaturalistic dialogue that goes absolutely where you expect, delivered with a generous helping of ham. My interest was piqued momentarily when I realised that the child playing John was in the tiger segment of Tales That Witness Madness, and there is a soupçon of guilty curiosity in watching Hemmings and Hunnicutt perform as a bickering couple in the knowledge that their real life marriage was at that time falling apart. Otherwise this is a colossal waste of everyone's time. Move along...

'Voices' (1973) - Kevin Billington.

Following the tragic death of their only child, husband (Hemmings) and grief-stricken, suicidal wife's (Hunnicutt) attempts at reconciliation following her prolonged stay in a mental hospital prove disastrous, since their choice of dilapidated getaway country manor, isn't quite as abandoned as it initially appears. 'Voices' translates well from stage to screen, due in no small part to the very fine acting of real-life power couple Hunnicutt and Hemmings, with Hunnicutt bringing enormous depth and pathos to a complex and challenging role. Shot on film and video, which demonstratively lends 'Voices' a unique, if initially jarring aesthetic, while I'm quite sure it was unintended, this singular approach recalled Brian Clemen's macabre masterclass 'Thriller'. Dissimilar in many ways, there are, perhaps, shared eerie tonalities with 'Images', 'The Innocents', 'Symptoms' and 'Don't Look Now', that strongly recommends Kevin Billington's captivating 'Voices' to those appreciative of nuanced acting, dramatically sound film-making, and artful, slowly scintillating supernatural suspense.