The Legend 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...

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 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?

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")