The Passing

Learning they've inherited their grandmother's mansion, a group of siblings decide to hold a party to celebrate the acquisition, unaware the spirit of the deceased hasn't left the home and is intent on passing on a grave family secret to them that will put them in extreme danger once they realize they're not alone in the house.

This was a really hard one to get a handle on, as there's a lot to like here but some utterly maddening moments as well. The best part of this one is the fact that there's a rather effective house where the action takes place in, which is well-suited to the types of scares present here with the lurking behind the corners, spying in the distance and such. Definitely gory enough as well, with some nice kills, and there's enough action to keep it interesting, but the problem lies in the fact that the film doesn't know what it really wants to be. Most of the evidence points to a haunted house/ghost film, yet a twist late in the film adds in a murderous deformed family member into the mix and it doesn't gel all that well with what's been shown/discussed and it comes off rather funky and weird. An incredibly dragging pace in the first half also lowers this, but it's still not too bad.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Nudity.

I tried! But I couldn't quite make it to the end of this one, for fear of drifting into a deep slumber from which I might never awaken. "The Passing": is about several members of a family who must spend a weekend in their late granny's old house in order to gain their inheritance. Pretty soon, there are a lot of people in the house, as it turns into a party. One by one, people start getting knocked off by an unseen force. There's also a mysterious box whose contents were not meant or human hands. The only interesting aspect of this badly acted and badly written "thriller" was an occasional flash forward to the lone survivor as she tells her tale to a screwy cop (the late Paul Gleason) who figures she did everyone else in. I understand there is a twist at the very end. I was onto other things by then, and missed it. I suspect I did not miss much.

I saw this film at Raleigh Studios for the film festival "Screamfest" which it won for best editing. The film has an interesting story that kept me wanting to see what happened next. The horror scenes were not over done but quite graphic. There were a few popcorn scares that were well executed and made me jump. The film also had some comic relief with the detective character played by Paul Gleason, he was great. The performances were all good, especially the one played by the lawyer. The female characters were all hot. My favorite couple was Josh and Cindy who had some smokin' scenes as well as the best performed. Overall the movie was good with an ending that definitely makes you think. It's a movie that I would recommend.

Meaningless drivel that makes a mockery of the horror genre. It says a lot about this film that veteran actor Paul Gleason died in 2006, yet this apology for a movie was not released until 2011.

I am tempted to say that this movie was one of the worst I have ever seen, but that would give it kudos it does not deserve. There is little that is good about this movie, except perhaps that it is less than ninety minutes long. Unfortunately that is about eighty-nine minutes too long. In fairness the thumping rock soundtrack is reasonably good but the acting, script and direction are all woeful.

If you are tempted to watch this movie, resist it at all costs. Do something more rewarding, like sticking needles in your eyes or pulling out your finger nails - both are far more enjoyable than sitting through this unmitigated trash.

This was apparently shot some five years before it made its way onto DVD, by which time the distributors might as well have just called it 'MIRRORS 3'. A vapid girl and her two self-centered brothers inherit the estate of their late grandmother (the final role for Lilyan Chauvin). The old cliche' of having to spend a weekend in the creepy old house in order to claim a share of the inheritance is dug out of mothballs in order to place the trio and their sex-crazed friends in jeopardy. Grandma was an evil witch who means to possess her granddaughter. Or turn her into a witch too. Or drive her insane. The script is less than clear on this point. A wooden box full of computer-animated black smoke occasionally kills people, although its exact function is never explained either. Granny's spirit emerges from mirrors, pools of water and other reflective surfaces and slaughters the clueless twentysomethings in surprisingly rushed and underwhelming FX sequences. She speaks with both an implaceable foreign accent and a ghostly reverb effect, so it's not always easy to make out what she's saying. Which is a problem because, as dead people go, she's rather chatty. A large portion of what I will kindly term the plot is told in flashback, as the girl relates the events to a police detective (Paul Gleason, who is excellent) and his irritating partner (the director in a comic role the movie would have been better off without). The confused script is replete with loose ends and senseless bits of business presented as though they are serious clues. Who are the thieves at the beginning and why do they think the box contains something valuable? How does it end up back in the house? How do some characters know about the box when it hasn't been mentioned to them yet? What offscreen individual is being handed the keys to the mansion at the end of the movie? Who are the "others" the detective mentions at the end? Did anyone really die or is the heroine just nuts and imagining it all? Did she kill them herself? Could the writer have cared less whether this movie made any sense? The cast give it their best shot and the women are beautiful but in the end the whole thing is inconclusive, incoherent and utterly unsatisfying. Pass it by.