The Yellow Wallpaper

Had to watch it. I'm always curious when a film gets a mix of very high and very low ratings. Plus, I have long been a fan of the original story. This film deserves a solid middle rating. There is some decent cinematography and acting for the budget range, but anyone who comes to it expecting a direct adaptation of the short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" is going to be disappointed.

A real movie that has been developed for real entertainment, devoid of the fake images that Hollywood now depends upon instead of good acting, and creative scripts.

Good performances by actors, seems to be a rarity in my eyes. This movie is fantastic, with actors actually and professionally performing their skilled trade that seems to be vanishing in big Hollywood Productions and replaced by loud music and fake imagery. Oh that Hollywood, they need to come back to earth!

Extremely entertaining, beautifully and skillfully shot, scary and intriguing, an artful adaptation of the original short story, this movie seems to have it all.

I am privileged to have seen this unique film and meet its creators.

I highly recommend this movie to everyone. It was one of the most desolate, mysterious and frightening movies I have ever seen. I decided to watch it in the middle of the afternoon with the sun pouring into my living room but it was night everywhere.

There is something of the Brothers Grimm in here. There are terrifying forest scenes. An artistic conflict between light and dark. But most of all there is a horrible loneliness and sense of loss and helplessness and desperation. The Yellow Wallpaper is a picture of total misery and fear and desperation. There is nothing worse in the world than the loss of a child and this film takes us to the limit.

I have always loved the story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman but now I love it even more! What a unique and interesting way bring a classic story to a new generation--with a few surprises, too.

I was highly skeptical after seeing the trailer for this and all the 10 star reviews, but I have to say it was definitely worth ones time. The Yellow Wallpaper definitely had budget restraints, but that didn't really matter here. The acting and overall ambiance gradually drew me in deeper and deeper to these people's lives. The movie really had an old feel to it that a lot of Hollywood films lack. I actually felt like I was watching these people.

With that being said, The Yellow Wallpaper is a bizarre movie that has some shades of Lovecraft in it. It strays from the original short story into a full feature that stands out on its own. Im glad it took the direction it did because so many people were talking about the short I figured I pretty much already knew how it was going to end. I'm glad I was wrong.

This film is a bit of a slow burn, but it carries itself well. Its creepy, bizarre, and bleak. I recommend this to anyone who likes time pieces and Lovecraft stories.

Solid 7/10

This is a film which honors patience. It is not for those who need action-packed adrenaline stoking from beginning to end. This is a film for those who appreciate the slow build up to terror of a classic Gothic ghost story.

The characters speak slowly in careful Victorian, but Midwestern American, English as the year is 1892. The camera reveals scenes with a languid, sensuality. Yet, there is a discomforting eerie quality that builds as the film progresses. Most of the scenes are outside or within a 100-year old haunted house. A few sequences are of a bleak landscape separating the house from town. The sound track has a threatening undertone. John encounters a rat-killing couple on a bicycle ride into town. The encounter is the first of increasingly bizarre experiences that John, his wife, and sister-in-law, Jennifer have, after renting the house with yellow wallpaper. Suspense builds, like waves, each reaching a bit higher, and the viewer's tension notches up.

The film is wonderfully atmospheric and full of symbolic allusion (e.g., town represents safety, where there is civilization, but it is cut off by desert, forest, and distant mountains, thus unattainable for those caught in the web of terror). The stark Victorian mansion, at first, seems to offer a comforting respite for the grief-stricken family. John and Charlotte have lost their daughter in a fire that consumed their previous house. True to its Gothic literary antecedent, however, the house's hidden terrors slowly enrapture and capture its occupants. The descent into terror and madness is a slow but steady incline, not a dash from a spring board.

John, a medical doctor, demands that the family maintain its rational, civilized understanding of reality and thus seek understanding of the inexplicable events that begin to occur after moving into the house. Charlotte embraces the irrational-supernatural aura of the house as a means to reconnect with their deceased daughter. Jennifer, the pragmatist, brings in a "ghost-buster" from back east. So, what force will prevail and will the 3 survive as they approach the final horror the house dishes up? The production is first class in all respects. The sets appear historically accurate to the Victorian era. The soundtrack music is wonderfully eerie and then shrieks like Psycho when the viewer's nerves are about to snap with tension. The acting is superb by all 3 of the main characters, and the walk-ons are appropriately creepy. The writing and direction bring to life for 21st Century viewers a classic Gothic tale of terror.