Little Murder - Spur aus dem Jenseits

Set in New Orleans, this film is a strange mixture of genres -- part film noir and part ghost story. Josh Lucas plays a detective, guilt-ridden over the shooting of an innocent boy by mistake. He is assigned to a stakeout in an empty house across the street from a suspect, Terrence Howard, who is possibly implicated in a number of bizarre serial killings. The detective soon discovers that the stakeout house has a reputation in the neighborhood of being haunted. A young female musician was murdered there several years earlier, allegedly by her own brother, who has been placed in an asylum for the criminally insane. When the detective discovers he is able to see, hear, and even touch the ghost of this murdered woman, played by Lake Bell, he realizes that she can only find rest if he can find her real killer and thus set the brother (Nick Lashaway) free. Deborah Ann Woll (of "True Blood") and Sharon Leal play friends of the murdered woman, and as such, their own lives may be in jeopardy. Cary Elwes stands out as the villainous owner of a country club that may be a front for drug trading. The movie is an atmospheric indie thriller that manages to be both suspenseful and moderately entertaining, thanks to sterling performances from Josh Lucas and Terrence Howard. Thus far, its only DVD releases that I'm aware of have been in Germany and Australia. Hopefully, it will be available in the U.S. before long.

Since when are there basements in New Orleans? I found this very distracting that the name of the movie contains "New Orleans" and it was not fully recorded in that city...sigh

Let's make something clear, this is not a thriller movie. It's a decent crime drama but there is nothing about this movie that I would consider it a thriller. I'll be honest it's not a bad watch but be forewarned it is slow and not in one of those building up slow then smack you down crazy make it all worth it kind of slow. The one thing it does have going for it it leads you in a couple directions. You really don't know who the final suspect is until the very end. The acting was decent, the cinematography was underwhelming, especially since they were supposed to be in New Orleans. I feel like they could've done so much more with the story but it was like the writer just couldn't pull all the threads together to create something exciting. I'm not going to say it was a total waste of time but I will say I do not have a desire to watch it again. On to the next.

Lucas convincingly pulled off this eerie tale of a police detective who not only was haunted by his past mistakes but haunted by the murder of beautiful young woman in the present. The storyline kept me interested and somewhat surprised to the end.

The opening scene reveals the problem with this film - if it was a home-made film, ala the Blair Witch project, it might be more forgivable, but even indie films should be able to do better camera work than this, better directing. It's particularly tragic as a supernatural mystery film in New Orleans sounds so good and the scenery was downgraded by the truly poor production - almost as if the director, cameramen and production crew were entirely trashed throughout filming. I liked the plot, the casting and though I'd watch a film just for Josh Lucas, here his acting was spotty (fading in and out of character, too blatant to be passed off by the character development that did happen) he was far outmatched by Terrence Howard. Deborah Woll and Cary Elwes are fun in their supporting roles and it's always good to see those two. Lake Bell is very pretty - not going to win any acting awards for this - but she didn't ruin the film. I'd say the cast must not have been overly inspired - hope nobody else gives this director a shot. What a shame because this could have been a much better film. Still, definitely worth watching if you're going to bed anyway and are watching it for free.