Coisa Ruim

A well respected academic inherits a beautiful country home.He packs his wife,children and grandson and moves to the country area.One must say that the country has many hidden and disturbing secrets:it's a place where superstition runs rampant and the local priest still performs exorcisms."Coisa Ruim" is a big horror surprise from Portugal.This atmospheric chiller offers well-written and carefully nuanced script and strong performances from all involved.The tension rises very slowly creeping under your skin and there are some truly creepy moments.It's beautifully shot in a magnificently decaying old country home.Give this lovely and intelligent film a look.9 out of 10.

Plot is about biology professor Xavier Oliveira Monteiro (played by Adriano Luz think a Portuguese Kevin Spacey) who takes his family back to the village and home his ancestors are from. Only its not the lovely picturesque area it seems on the surface, there's a lot of old folk tales the locals are only more than happy to share with the Monteiro family. To prove himself right and the locals wrong Xavier and wife Helena agree to take part in a séance that ends in terror when a part of his childhood is brought up no one alive could possibly have known. This all happens at a point the oldest son returns home from studying, who as some kind of incestious hold on his sister who's got a baby child of her own to an unknown father. The films true beauty is that it lets the viewer fill in the gaps themself something which may be off putting to people who can't accept ambiguity in what they view.

First horror/supernatural/psychological/spiritual (call it what you want hehe even its genre is ambiguous) film I've seen in ages I've been totally captivated in. Everything works well, the music mostly light almost indie guitar based rolls along perfectly with the beautiful yet washed out look of the locations, just the way it blends with the fog rolling along a field or dust blowing during one of the period funerals.

A much deserved 9/10 from me, if I had to give a flaw it would be it was a little slow to get going but so hope Frederico Serra & Tiago Guedes choose to do more creepy films and not switch genres. Also if Portuguese cinema is this good, please distributors start subbing and releasing it so the rest of the world can see it.

Coisa Ruim is, indeed, a movie that makes us believe that the Portuguese film industry is finally reaching for the audience, without compromising the quality of their productions.

I think enough was said here about this movie's main theme and plot, so I'll just emphasize (in my opinion) its main positive/negative aspects:

+ acting was well above average + beautiful photography and careful set selection + simple interesting plot understandable by all (not like most Portuguese movies)

• over-articulated dialogs, sometimes people seem to talk like if they all add degrees - too much usage of focus/defocus effects (it becomes a bit boring...) - over-saturation of the image, sometimes you can tell it was really sunny when the scene was shot, but in order to maintain the dark tone in the movie you get over-saturated colors and too much contrast

All in all, a good movie. A promising debut for this two directors, and a new breath for Portuguese movies.

It is indeed an amazing film! Saying that the film photography is 'perfect' is not enough! The story is very interesting and we can experience a very good acting from all the actors and actresses throughout the film. The fear provoked by the film is based on simple things, which in my opinion is the best, not like extravagant special affects like American or English films. This is a fine example of the power of the Portuguese film industry and very good professionalism! This is another example among many others of good cinema made in Portugal, it deserves to be seen all around the world!

About many other comments about this film...I don't agree with them obviously! Many of them were wrote for Portuguese people with small minds with the ridiculous idea of "what is Portuguese is bad", It is just sad...

Still a great film! Hope you watch it!

Ruben

This movie had so much potential... I really don't know what to say, because on the first minutes I was so captivated, I thought that this was it!: Portuguese cinema took a giant leap, and who could have guessed, on the suspense/horror/supernatural genre! The photography was top notch I'd say, and the sound, the acting... all these technical elements brought to life a simply Portuguese rural town with a creepy, eerie atmosphere. Still, it seems that the people behind this project didn't go beyond that! The story seems interesting enough in the first minutes, but then it just keeps dragging on! No real scary scenes at all! And the ending? It was predictable (sorry, it was! Everything pointed out to that one character I won't mention here), and it just didn't justify the time wasted on the movie.

Overall: technically good, but too dull and dead to even recommend someone to see it. I'm really sad, because I'm still waiting for the big jump of the Portuguese cinema... and this one was not it.

Next time, try to focus more on the story.