Juego de niños

Dull French horror movie about a frazzled mom who believes that her two small children plan to harm her and her increasingly short-fused husband. Early scenes with children playing a secret game that the mother is to be excluded from, for now, are promising and remind of the chilling Ray Bradbury story Zero Hour. Unfortunately, the movie never goes anywhere interesting from there and the filmmakers leave the audience with many more questions than answers: What exactly are the spirits of the old brother and sister trying to accomplish and why? If they died as children why do they appear as old people? How exactly did they manage to make one of the characters commit suicide? This movie is a complete dud. If you like evil children movies you would be much better off watching The Innocents (which this also recalls in its early scenes) or the Spanish flick Who Could Kill A Child.

In Paris, Marianne (Karin Viard) and Jacques (Charles Berling), and their son Julian (Alexandre Bongibault) and daughter Aude (Camille Vatel) compose a happy upper class French family, living in a huge apartment (for European standards). The children have a baby-sitter, Daphnée (Ludivine Sagnier) and Jacques has just been promoted in his job. The family's life changes when Marianne receives two weird old visitors, the Worms (Pierre Julien and Manuela Gourary). They ask Marianne for permission to visit the apartment, where they live when they were children. Marianne receives a phone call from her husband, and when she returns to the living room, the strange couple was leaving the children's room. From this moment on, the most mysterious and bizarre things happen with Marianne and Jacques, affecting their lives. I liked this very scary French horror movie a lot. It has the same atmosphere of `Stanley Kubrick´s The Shining', the characters are well developed, and the tension increases in an intelligent way. The viewer is never 100% sure whether the mother or the father is getting deranged or the children became evil, until the end of the plot. Unfortunately, there is a great flaw in the script regarding the visit of the Worms: why have they waited so long to come back to the apartment? My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): `Jogos Sinistros' (`Sinister Games')

Remember The Possessed? In 1961, Jack Clayton filmed that oppressive story about a young unexperienced lady nursing two innocent kids and facing some supernatural appearances. Or was it her that filled all the atmosphere with her own fears and neurastenic obsessions? Tuel, french director, do the same excellent thing with his movie: two little kids trapped in a huge maze-like parisian flat, between a father who is on the edge of madness and a mother who lost a son a few yew years ago and never succeeded to overgo the drama. Are the two intruders at the beginning of the thriller real persons, ghosts from a past tragedy, or just a projection of the mother (excellent Karin Viard)? Despite an end which sounds just too much of a final explanation, Laurent Tuel's movie is a little masterpiece of building anguish without easy effects, and suggesting horror that can hide istelf behind each of the dorrs of the flat. Wonderful. NAturalist fantasy at its best.

In this French movie, loosely inspired by Jack Clayton's "The Innocents" (which was based on Henry James' novel "Turn of the Screw"), we have an interesting story, outstanding acting, and very good classy old school film-making, how can that go wrong? why are all the negative reviews? For the most part, the praise and over-hype this film received set the expectations too high, so the disappointment is understandable.

It is a straight forward horror story set in an old apartment in France, where after the mysterious visit of two strangers, the children of a young couple begin to act strange and their mother begins to wonder what is going on with her family. Her health problems and the demons of her past make worse her situation.

Compared to "The Innocents", "The Others" and "The Shining", the film really appears as a weak dull attempt of a horror movie; but if you ignore the over-hype and watch it with low expectations, the film is a pleasant surprise and a promising step forward in director Laurent Tuel's career.

Actress Karin Viard plays Marianne, the young mother who faces the strange behavior of her beloved children; and she gives a very good performance. Her outstanding performance asher character goes to psychological torture is one of the most notable characteristics of this film. The acting of her children is very good too, and it is surprising considering their young age. The rest of the cast go from average to good, which is a shame because Viard and the kids do very good jobs.

The film moves very slow, as old films used to do; this old school style of film-making probably will not be of the taste of those used to modern day fast paced scary movies, but will surely be appreciated by fans of 60s horror movies. The movie has that claustrophobic feeling and eerie atmosphere, so characteristic of films of those years.

The script has some troubles, as it leaves many plot holes and while probably it was the intention of the writers to leave things unexplained, I was left with the sensation that many things went unexplored and that a lot of the story's potential was lost.

The direction is OK, but never reaches the imagery of Kubrick, Amenabar or Clayton. As I wrote above, watch it with low expectations and you'll be greatly rewarded. 6/10

This is not a great movie but it's quite a good one with an eerie atmosphere - ideal viewing for the early hours of the morning. I missed the beginning so had to catch up on what it was all about - but I could tell right away that those kids were up to no good. As another reviewer noted, if you're thinking of starting a family then avoid this film - you may be persuaded otherwise! Maybe the denouement doesn't explain much but hey, this is a horror movie. The characters that played Mr & Mme Worms were (I thought) hideous in the extreme & enough to give you nightmares. A quietly creepy and menacing film.