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Yes, it had the feel of a low budget made-for-tv movie, and it wasn't scary. It had a very different feel than most "horror" movies I've seen. This one is really more of a folklore ghost story than a scary horror movie, but that's not a bad thing. Don't expect anything exceptional, but it's a fun watch.

If you want to be shocked and terrified, don't bother watching it. But if you'd be interested in a ghost story from New England folklore, you'll probably like this.

Guy Cooley (Justin Theroux) moves to an old farm in Princeton with his wife Jeanne Cooley (Julie Delpy) and their two daughters, Molly and Lucy, to build eight windmills to generate clean power to the city. He was hired by the local Samantha Porter (Brooke Adams), who owns with her relative Jonas Dodd (Mark Boone Junior) the lands in the woods where the facility will be built. The Cooley family has a cold reception in town, and while voting for the approval of the project, the old woman Gretchen Caswell (Jamie Donnelly) votes against the construction with many followers and mentions the historic importance of the spot and the name of Martha. Jeanne researches and discloses that two hundred and fifty years ago, a girl called Lucy Keyes got lost in the woods and in spite of the efforts of her mother Martha Keyes and the locals, she was never found. When the ghost of Martha comes to the fields around their property calling for Lucy, Jeanne realizes that the legend is true and that there are many hidden secrets in that location.

Something is missing to make "The Legend of Lucy Keyes" a good movie. The direction is too cold, and the acting is also cold and without any vibration or heart; Justin Theroux and Julie Delpy do not show any chemistry, forming a weird couple. The screenplay is confused, with Jeanne refusing to go to the mass because she misses Anna, but who is Anna and what happened with her? The deranged behavior of Samantha Porter in the end of the story has no explanation. The use of the smell of clam-bellies to keep ghosts away is unique and ridiculous. In the end, I found this B-movie an intriguing and forgettable entertainment. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Fantasma de Lucy Keyes" ("The Ghost of Lucy Keyes")

The Legend of Lucy Keyes: I was really stupid thinking this one could rock stars. The movie is not bad, but sincerely it does not expand into nothing original nor outstanding.

A city family moves into a rural zone where it lies a secret and a supernatural tale: An haunting folk story where a ghost of a woman wanders thru the woods at night trying to find her lost daughter 250 years ago.

The acting is decent and the story is somewhat cool but the running of the film goes towards mediocrity and uncreativeness due to a lack of positive sets to make the audience captive and thrilled in the seat.

If you're trying to watch a real horror movie don't go this way and avoid the party-hunting that sets off to find little Lucy Keyes...

I saw this film at the Santa Barbara Film Festival a few weeks ago, and I'm sorry to report that it's just awful. Prior to the screening, the director explained to the audience that it was "based on a local legend in his own backyard", and because he seemed like a nice guy I really wanted to enjoy it. Sadly, there was basically nothing to enjoy :( The film is just plain dull, that's its main problem. Ages go by with literally nothing important happening, and the film is EXTREMELY repetitive. There are endless scenes of the characters tossing and turning while having bad dreams, and the movie completely fails to create an atmosphere of dread. Combine that with horrendous acting from the two children and a totally absurd, contrived ending, and you have a movie that would be better off going straight to video. This is the kind of film that would garner less than a 15% rating on Rotton Tomatoes, and anyone saying positive things about it prior to release is probably a studio plant.

"The Legend of Lucy Keyes" isn't entertaining, and it's just not scary either. At least not unless your idea of scary is two actors running around aimlessly in the woods for 15 minutes yelling "Lucy?" "Lucy??" "Lucy!?" a hundred million billion times.

P.S. WTF are clam bellies?

I've never written an IMDb review before, but at the insistence of director John Stimpson I will tell the world my feelings.

This is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. Stimpson's lack of choices make for a confused genre film that doesn't know if it wants to be a murder mystery, ghost story or horror film. Combining these three fields weigh the film down causing it to stumble over its own shoddy progression.

The acting is undeniably sophomoric even from the veterans that populate the screen. They careen through the film as if making a TV movie of the week. The frequent chuckles I heard from the surrounding audience makes me feel as if I'm not alone in my thinking. There is way to much running through the woods screaming. At one point I was hoping Robert Stack would emerge and ask for any information to the where-abouts of Lucy Keyes.

The direction is stilted and stiff. The use of hand held is meant to loosen up and flow with the characters, but feels instead like a contrived way of convincing the audience that the film is tense. Stimpson's film feels like oh so many movies I've watched by 15 year-olds, self- important and lackluster.

The script is amateur in every way; from the Cray paper thin plot to the use of swear words. Robert Towne spoke of his film the Last Detail's use of vulgarity as a substitute for action. Here, Lucy Keyes uses swearing as a substitute for naturalism. Stimpson believes that if the parents cut loose and let an F-Bomb fly they'll be more human and believable. Instead, each curse reminds me that I'm watching the most pedestrian of film-making.

As something that wants to be a ghost story, horror film and murder mystery the film lacks any scares other than cheap "jump" scares. The lack of atmosphere in the supposed tense portions of the film makes for a laughable movie. It also diffuses the overall tone making the film feel muddled and unfocused. How anyone could find this film scary is beyond my understanding. The Nickelodeon television series Are You Afraid of The Dark is much scarier and has no use for severed pigs heads.

Technically the film is just above competent. The photography is nothing special, I believe this is because Stimpson made no choices in preproduction so as to color correct it later. This leaves the photographic images flat and undynamic. Nighttime is blue, daytime warm. The editing is uninspired. Its mostly an offender of the editor's "band-aid" using dissolves and fades to black in an over abundance. The crude use of these fades to black feels more like an area for a commercial break, unfortunately none came. I could've used even the most terrible of commercials to break my boredom with this film.

What does one do with a film like this? Television? I wouldn't force this on even the most unassuming Lifetime Television watcher. The castration of dignity Lifetime would do to a film like this may be fitting, but even that audience would be pained watching this film. DVD? Maybe, but what's the point? Lucy Keyes should prepare for a long shelf life.

This film is the rock bottom of awful. If I heard one more character calling "Lucy" I was going to be sick. The plot line is thin as is the script. The actors did the best they could with a terrible script. It was so predictable. Scary? I'll say only one scene in the entire film got my attention for a split second. For shock value they threw in a quick eye blinking scene of dead, mutilated pigs. Same old, same old, a kid so stupid she wanders around in the middle of the night with a flashlight, doors that won't open no matter how long the guy on the outside says open the door. This film just wasted more than an hour of my time.

What a blast! I was born and raised in this small town and as a child, Lucy Keyes was the subject of many a Camp Fire horror story that left us certain we heard Martha lurking in the woods surrounding our camp sites.... shivering in our sleeping bags, we frightened campers would be begging for Martha to stop the never-ending calling for "luuuuuucy" ....

I saw the film through a different view. One of nostalgia. I knew the story, am intimate with the setting, and knew many of the "extra's" in the film. So for me it was a hoot! My 17 and 12 year old girlfriends thought it was "awesome" ... with just the right amount of scary spooky thrill to keep them on the edge of their seat. They didn't get the political references to "key parties", "the pig farm" and "windmills" which has become part of the towns lore...but some information is only retrieved by the "insiders".

My friend Jen, thought it was pokey. And I agree...there were some shots that lingered too long, some acting that was difficult to sit through and lost credibility. There are scenes that could use "tightening" up and may have bettered served the film on the editors floor.

As for the ending...interesting theory. Being a writer and performer myself I applaud the writers risk and imagination with the ending.

I am in awe of the time, creativity and courage the Writer/Director has taken with a time warn tale, in a small New England town where judgment and critics run rampant but few get off their duff and put themselves out there for review.

Hey, if we are lucky, this is not the last we will see of John Stimpson, nice guy or not, John Stimpson has a future in Film.

I caught this film last night and was very pleasantly surprised. Other reviewers have covered the basic plot, so I won't bother here. I have to say that I was most impressed by the little girl who played contemporary Lucy. That tot can act! She was cute without being cutesy, and solid without being wooden or robotic, as some child actors can be.

It was fun to see Jamie Donnelly on screen again. Although she has changed quite a lot from her Grease days, the voice and the eyes are still the same. Living in a small (pop. 3000) town myself, I found myself chuckling about the rather clichéd "town eccentric" character Donnelly played and thinking to myself, "Why OF COURSE there's a town eccentric!" But her character was central to the plot and she turned out to be more than I expected.

I recommend this film for those who want a spooky yarn without all the slash-and-gore contemporary film makers seem to think all ghostly tales must have. It does have some bloody moments, but compared to most of "Let's dismember people" films being made today, they're not too bad.

Just went to the screening at the Santa Barbara Film festival. Mr.Stimpson has provided a wonderful thriller that had the entire theater hiding behind their hands in terror!!! Loved the true story addition to a supernatural legend! Bravo!!! It will be worth every penny when it finally comes to the general public. There was also a great Q and A with director Stimpson the audience took part in... Lots of UCSB film school students it seemed. Very appropriate for a Halloween release. I did wish, however, that more was answered about the historical treatment of the movie, much was left to the imagination for something that was "claimed" to have a truthful subtext. Did remind me a little of some recent east coast locale flicks that were psycho-thriller....so saw many things a-comin before they happened. Many cliché's that could have been omitted. Other than that...super cool!!!!!

I'm from Princeton, so I know all about Lucy Keyes. And since this movie was filmed on site at Princeton (this was cool for me because never before could I point at a scene in a movie and say: "I went there yesterday" every other day), I recognized everything-but the people. All of them were hired actors pretending to live in the town, when I knew well that they didn't belong. But this was only a feeling one living in Princeton would get.

In perspective to the quality of the movie; it was great. And it included quite a bit of background of the town, not just the ghosts: the clam bellies on the farm, and the windmills on the mountain. And although the actual legend as told in the story was off (Lucy went into the woods to follow her sisters to a pond without their knowledge, not blueberry picking) it was well told through the scenes of Jeanne's research. The frequent fade-ins and -outs became somewhat annoying, but seemed to heighten suspense. The acting was mediocre at parts, but that made the movie seem to be real, rather than obviously great actors doing obviously well-written scripts- life isn't like that. As for the whole plot, it was good, and maintained an amount of suspense, although a climax was never fully reached. As for the ghosts, they were creepy, but a bit inconsistent, and almost all of the cliché spook-scenes are used, so not much in achievement there.

As for the ending, this was disappointing. I won't give it away, but it doesn't fit the story. If you've lived in Princeton and know the story, you will know that there is no solution to the mystery, and to place one there doesn't seem right.

So, all in all, the movie was an exciting experience, with chilling fright-scenes, with parts of love, sadness, desperation, and comedy, too. But still, a bit of a let-down near the end.

It is never a good sign when the audience laughs at a film's most dramatic moments - and it happened several times during the screening that I attended of this film.

While the film is based on a genuine local legend, the director's strict adherence "this is exactly how it happened" sometimes detracts from the story, since he seems unable to resist stuffing _Lucy Keyes_ with every possible detail of the legend and the current happenings in the town, regardless of whether or not it contributes to the plot. This leads to a lot of loose ends that are never satisfactorily tied together. Overacting, inconsistent tone and shoddy character development plague this film. There are so many plot points that are introduced as big moments but then never play out to any significance that I left the theater extremely irritated by _Lucy Keyes_.

Well without going into detail because this film does not need it an average and typical setting seen this many times with this type of movie. Sure its apparently based on a true story..... but whatever its feels like a thriller I've seen before, all a bit predictable and safe. I felt the young girl Lucy played her part well but the script was basic and so difficult for the actors to expand there own character into the role a low budget effort yes set in a farm basically with some pigs if you like that sort of thing but it didn't really help the film besides city folks moving to a country house and having problems how many times has that been done? I did watch it until the end but honestly not a film I would care to remember or recommend anyone else to watch.

Billy

This was one of the worst movies I have ever watched. I fell asleep the first 2 times and only watched the final scenes so that I could fairly say the movie was horrible. The actors as father and youngest daughter are good, even well played with such a contrite, bland script. I couldn't stand to watch the mother. The acting, the writing, the story line... terrible. Usually, I just would find something else to watch but this was so awful, I had to review to prevent others from even considering this and the only way I feel I can write a review is if I did watch the movie in it's entirety. Terrible. Awful. And to even submit review I need to complete 10 lines of rambling so I just needed to add one more sentence. Ta da!

This film is an intriguing story about an old New England legend. Anyone who likes a spine chilling ghost story will love this film. John Stimpson does a great job juxtaposing the family life of a 21st century family with a 250 year old folklore story. Having lived my whole life in New England I could relate to the telling and retelling of old stories and how they become part of the fabric of a small town. The symmetry between Lucy Keyes, who goes missing in 1755, and the modern day Lucy who has moved to the countryside with her family is brilliant. I won't give away the ending, but the symmetry gathers onto itself as the film continues. And the eccentric character of Caswell fits the small town setting superbly. You will enjoy this film!

But held my interest to the end. Could have been scarier.

I was tempted at many times to shut off this movie as it was very slow moving and, although I was intrigued at moments throughout due to the sense of foreboding, it didn't allow me to connect with many of the adult characters and- since I tend to watch movies on Amazon Prime late at night- it wasn't enough to hold me in suspense as much as I had hoped (I have been pleasantly surprised before). Towards the end of the movie I did start to feel grateful that I hadn't switched it off. One good selling point is that it is based on a local legend (apparently), so if you are from the area in which said legend did allegedly take place, I would recommend it for you. But this is NOT a masterpiece. That being said, it does beat some of the stinkers you get for free on Amazon prime.

One family comes face-to-face with the forces of the unknown in this supernatural thriller based on actual events. On April 14, 1755, something terrible happened to Lucy Keyes in the forest surrounding Wachusett Mountain. 250 years later, Guy (Justin Theroux) and Joanne Cooley (Julie Delpy) move their family into an 18th century farmhouse at the foot of the mountain to escape the city, and recover from the death of their youngest child to SIDS. It seemed like the perfect place to get a fresh start and raise their two young daughters Molly and Lucy. Upon discovering that the Keyes family had occupied the farmhouse at the time of their daughter's death, Joanne begins having strange dreams, and hearing haunting cries coming from the woods. After finding a letter admitting to the murder of Lucy Keyes, Joanne becomes convinced that Martha and Lucy Keyes' spirits are attempting to contact her in hopes that she can set them free from their earthly limbo, and begins to fear that their grieving mother plans to claim Lucy Cooley as a substitute for her own missing daughter. As Guy attempts to convince the townspeople to approve construction of a wind farm project that he's currently working on, his wife's sanity begins to slip and their marriage starts to falter. Joanne's attempt to expose the truth about Lucy Keyes' disappearance only leads to greater terror, however, when the townspeople turn on the family, and young Lucy Cooley vanishes into the woods one cold and windy night.