El asesino en nosotros

A small town is plagued by an outbreak of apparent suicides. As the death toll rises, in increasingly grisly fashion, it becomes clear that something other than simple self-annihilation could be going on.

FROM WITHIN is a supernatural tale of past sins and retribution. It plays like a really good X-FILES episode. The idea of a curse that acts like a contagion has been done before (in RINGU, THE RING, etc.), but it remains an intriguing concept.

While the characters are all serviceable, and casting Adam Goldberg against type as a volatile redneck is a nice touch, it's the overall creepiness that makes this fear fable work...

I often come across people who prefer horror films that happen to have a good story. I, on the other hand, prefer films with a good story that just so happen to be scary. "From Within" is one of the latter. After having watched it, I'm surprised I had never heard of it before. It has a sense of overall quality unique to its class (relatively unknown, made for a Horrorfest).

The story is the movie's strongest point, with a plot that throws in appropriate twists without wavering from its core. From beginning to end, it is emotionally engaging and suspenseful. The character development exceeded my expectations as well, along with the performances from the cast. There is violence, but the film never drowns itself in gore. Most of the actual deaths happen just off-screen, giving you just enough build-up to use your imagination.

Supernatural horror/thrillers are a dime a dozen, and many of them fall short of expectations. "From Within" stands out among the crowd— proving that given a well-executed plot and the right casting, films of this genre can be as powerful as ever.

In Grovetown, there is a series of suicides after the suicide of an outcast teenager Sean (Shiloh Fernandez). His brother Aidan (Thomas Dekker) waits for the return of his cousin Sadie (Margo Harshman) to the family house for the funeral. When Dylan (Kelly Blatz), who is the fanatic Christian son of the reverend, beats up on Aidan, the undesirable youngster is helped by Dylan's girlfriend Lindsey (Elizabeth Rice) that drives him home. They talk about Dylan's mother Candace Spindle that had a grimoire to worship her pagan gods in a creek and was blamed by the god-fearing locals of murdering a man; then she died in a suspicious fire. Lindsey and Aidan befriend each other and sooner she finds that Sean has cursed the town with his own sacrifice unleashing an evil force that is leading the inhabitants to commit suicide. When Lindsey is chased by her evil image, Aidan decides to help her to stop the curse; but the price to be paid is high.

Last week I bought "From Within" on DVD without any reference, and I had low expectations with this movie. Fortunately I was wrong and I was surprised with this great horror movie. In this original story, the Christians are evil with their fanaticism, self-proclaiming "soldiers of the Lord" and capable of dreadful murders in the name of God. Further, the conclusion with no redemption is unusual in American movies that prefer commercial endings instead. The sweet and gorgeous Elizabeth Rice has an amazing performance and shows a perfect chemistry with Thomas Dekker. The unknown director Phedon Papamichael shows a promising debut, supported by a good screenplay and a cast with great potential. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Imagine if the award-winning cinematographer of the 2007 epic "3:10 to Yuma" decided to direct his own film. With over 40 titles under his belt, Phedon Papamichael is one of the industry's icons. Well, imagine no more. In the Brad Keene-penned "From Within," which had its World Premiere here at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Papamichael takes his considerable expertise behind the camera and crafts an auspicious directorial debut in the Hitchcock tradition.

Something is amiss in Grovetown. The suicide in the opening scene triggers a mystery which will bring teenagers Lindsay (Elizabeth Rice) and Aiden (Thomas Dekker) together in a quest for the truth, both about the occurrences as well as themselves.

The performances of Thomas Dekker ("Heroes," "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles") and Elizabeth Rice ("Mad Men") are at the heart of the movie and it's their believability which makes this film so emotional and poignant. Dekker's frightening gaze and enigmatic demeanor never lets up, in perfect contrast to Rice's innocence and vulnerability. Veteran Adam Goldberg (Roy), Rumer Willis (Natalie), and Kelly Blatz (Dylan) are also standouts.

"From Within" is technically brilliant. The use of single-point lighting and color palette of blues and grays in interior scenes are especially effective in enhancing the shadowy nature of the story, with sunset shots that would likely have been scuttled in a typical Hollywood movie. Here, the dim light works to the film's advantage. The sound effects, along with the Jason Cooper and Oliver Kraus score, also play a particularly distinct role here and are a major plus. As in any film of this genre, visual effects are key and they are top-notch. Most of all, though, the camera-work is simply breathtaking. Shot in widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the chilling locations and copious use of POV shots enhance the Hitchcockian feel of "From Within" -- no surprise given the director's background.

Although the film's first act leans toward horror, it soon becomes apparent that "From Within" is a story-driven psychological thriller more than anything and doesn't need to rely on blood and gore, although there's enough to please fans of the genre. The film's many twists and turns will hold audiences' interest right up to the closing credits. A creepy tale with a strong message about religious extremism and tolerance make "From Within" more than just another gorefest. From Within is a solid thriller with enough suspense to keep the viewer guessing until the end.

After the witness of a suicide starts off a chain of similar cursed deaths in town, a young woman tries to keep her hyper-religious boyfriend from going after the supposed start of the curse long enough to stop it before more deaths occur.

This here was a rather troubling and pretty flawed effort at times, though it does have a couple pretty interesting parts. The film is on when it's dealing with the curse and the graphic deaths that result, and beyond just the surface shocks and entertainment these are surprisingly deeper than expected. Spread throughout by the appearance of ghostly doppelgangers that mark the deaths as suicides, there's much more to this aspect of the film beyond the inherently creepy and thrilling scenes they are just on-the-surface, and altogether these provide the film with a lot of good marks. Unfortunately, there's still a lot wrong here and it's all centered around the backwoods inhabitants and the heavy presence of religion in their lives. Far too often this denigrates into a religious rant that never explains anything other than their backwards and irrational thinking damaging whatever this could've done with the material, and by unleashing a twist late in the film that makes for the whole affair mirroring a similar fate doled out years earlier for the same reason makes this whole part challenging and really tough to get by, making it so severe at times that it drags the rest of the film down considerably. It's still watchable, but not as it could've been.

Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.