The Spiritualist

Possibly the worst movie I've seen. It makes more sense to view as comedic attempt at acting. Otherwise don't waste your time.

With friends like that, who needs enemies. I'm talking of Laura's so called friends that appear during a seance. She doesn't know any of them but that's why the film fails. None of the characters are likeable. The story makes no sense and it jumps a lot. The best thing about it was the beautiful castle it was filmed in. The only reason I watched it was to see a ghost, but instead it was full of sounds of people gulping. All I can say is in one word: yawn.

I watched this despite some low scores because I'm really chugging through the horrors on Amazon, and, with it being on Prime, thought it was worth a gamble. I'm glad I did because I was engaged with the story throughout and taken by surprise a couple of times. The spiritualist herself is a great character played very nicely.

The story requires a bit of concentration, but I felt I understood it and was pretty satisfied by the payoff. It's fairly well-shot and produced and doesn't feel like a bargain basement feature (I'd say it has solid TV-quality production values) so 100% worth a watch if you like supernatural mysteries. However, it's definitely not terrifying, so avoid if you just want scares!

So, somewhat a telling of a ghost story, but the presentation is a bit confusing at first given the jumps in time that aren't well delineated. Then the movie shifts to a "spiritualist" coming to the home of the couple that the wife is plagued by visions of her deceased mother. It builds some sense of tension up to this point, then the plot shifts to keep itself hidden so there can be some twist at the end. It was still unclear at the end what was actually happening even though a point or two were clarified. The film was able to capture enough of an atmosphere that I could almost overlook the rather amateurish acting (Can Jake stop calling his wife "Babe" in every line he speaks to her?"). I wasn't completely bored while watching, but I was left without much feeling for this film.

The story was good. It has potential. The acting just so bad. The only one I give any props to is Caroline Burns Cooke, the spiritualist.

The sound was so bad at times I couldn't hear the dialog. Then it was so loud it was over whelming. The set was gorgeous. The estate was beautiful.