The Sublet

A very well-acted psychological horror/thriller following a couple and their little baby.

The atmosphere throughout the movie is haunting and chilling, and early on gets you in the right mood.

The film follows a young mother as she stays at home, caring for her infant child. She finds herself unraveling a disturbing mystery, which surrounds her new apartment and begins to test her sanity. I try not to compare films, but this film really has notes of Rosemary's Baby and reminded me a little bit of The Shining. I think it was the claustrophobic feel of the film and the constant wondering what's real and what's in her mind. It probably also helped that the film's decor was very dated, kind of 70s. It's because of this constant wondering and putting the pieces together that reflects good story telling, the mystery unraveled nicely and wasn't spoon fed to the audience. The film is atmospheric with lots of drama (some people might call this 'slow'), but it builds the tension nicely until it breaks you. This was certainly helped by Tianna Nori! I was gripped by her the entire film, it was a very engrossing performance. If you like your psychological horror, I would definitely check this one out!

A young couple with a child try to settle in after moving in their new apartment, but after some time the wife (Joanna) is haunted by paranormal activities. Her husband (Jeff) doesn't believe her and at some point she finds an old journal from a woman that lived in the same apartment before. The journal reveals that the woman's husband was abusive and that she wanted to escape. The movie is really slow and the general premise was really generic. You have Joanna that sees an hears things and you have the overworked Jeff that is annoyed and won't believe her. While reading the journal Joanna starts seeing the same things that the other woman depicted in her writings. In the final act the movie has its climax as expected and picks up some pace but in general there is nothing redeeming about this movie that makes it stand out. It's slow and forgettable and similar things have been done before. [4,1/10]

Saw 'Tonight She Comes', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'The Sublet' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be a little better than expected, having seen a lot of bad films recently. Won't say that 'The Sublet' is a great film (mediocre actually) because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.

'The Sublet' started off quite well, the first part starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected.

The setting is effectively spooky. Initially, there are spooky and suspenseful moments, it isn't dull, and the storytelling initially does intrigue. The acting generally was not bad, Tianna Nori carries the film very well.

However, the story was severely wanting in the second half after starting off promisingly. It is very disjointed and after the promising start the final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements enough, some of which go nowhere or serve much point. It also is uneventful too much of the time and the pace drags.

Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air and it all felt abrupt. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense (where there is barely any of either in the latter stages), scares could have been more consistent (again nowhere near enough) and some weren't surprising enough and had no atmosphere, the over-obvious sound not helping. The psychological parts of the story were more odd and undercooked rather than creepy and intriguing

Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a fair bit of cheese and blandness going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making. There is very little menace or urgency to the conflict and the direction is phoned in.

Overall, mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This movie tries to recall, in some weird, ugly and boring way, Rosemary's Baby by Polanski. It doesn't succeed, it's just a very bad imitation with a twist in the plot, a twist you can easily expect since the very beginning. It tells the story of a couple and their child moving to a subleased flat where, of course, strange things start to happen. However, these "typical horror movie things" happen way too slowly and they are easily foreseeable. I don't even want to spoil my time further, but I feel the need to remark the ugliness of this movie by warning the future audience that they are going to witness one of the worst acting they have ever seen.