Dark Memories - Ricordi terrificanti

Boy, I must be unlucky. Two banal and pointless movies in one week (the other being the extremely bland "Shallow Ground", for reference). I don't think I've been this unfortunate in a long time. Anyway, this is the story of a woman, Karen, who moves back into her grandparents' home after her grandmother dies, following her last wish. She's going to clean up the house and then sell it and marry her boyfriend. But what happens when she starts reliving the horrors of her past every single night?

This seemed promising, like some kind of Amityville Horror or The Shining-type of film. It had the lead actress from Jeepers Creepers, which I thought was a good movie overall. So this one was a good pick for me, and I didn't bother reading reviews or anything. But ehh...it's just mediocre at best, if not flat out awful. The acting is...terrible...especially from Gina Phillips, who was nowhere near this horrible back in Jeepers Creepers. Maybe it's the awful script. She screams way too much and they go on for too long. The caretaker is meant to 'become increasingly more violent', but it's actually more like one moment he's nice and kind and the next moment he's a freak. Doesn't make much sense. By the end it's barely even a horror movie. I don't know what to call it, but this was one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

I did give it a point or two extra for making me think, because there is a really intriguing idea buried here if you look hard enough. The ending of the movie seemed trite and lame to me, until I thought about it, and realized exactly what the whole thing meant. All the hazy, distorted flashbacks, the missing pages in the kids' book, and Pierce's sexually violent nature...all of it leads up to something that I think I'll let you figure out yourself. This may be a terrible film, but I had to give it a point for making me think and realize the meaning behind some stuff here.

After seeing the trailer for this on a DVD, it looked like a pretty promising movie. I was led to believe it was a supernatural thriller, which it was... or at least I think it was.

"Ring Around the Rosie" is about a woman named Karen (played be Gina Phillips from "Jeepers Creepers") who goes to clean out her grandparent's secluded old summerhouse after her grandmother passes away. She spends the weekend there with her boyfriend, and he leaves to go back to work while she spends a few more days there to finish up packing. She has some strange visions and dreams about the house, and some odd occurrences take place. While staying there, she is introduced to the caretaker of the place, Pierce (played by Tom Sizemore), who seems nice enough, if not a little strange. Her sister Wendy shows up to help, and as time progresses, Pierce begins to become violent, threatening the girl's lives.

The main problem with this movie is that it can't decide whether or not it's a supernatural horror film or a dramatic thriller. Or maybe it is one of the two, but I just didn't pick up on it. I thought it was some sort of supernatural story for the first 45 minutes or so, and then it turned into a thriller from there. Then when the dream-like twist ending wrapped things up, it seemed to combine the supernatural and thriller elements together - leaving the viewer very, very confused. On the plus side, the acting was pretty good, and it had some good moments. But it doesn't make up for the tangled, confusing plot.

I still don't exactly know what happened, it makes no sense to me. If you watch this film, you will see how many questions are left unanswered, leaving the viewer with the attitude like "What in the hell was that!?". This movie could have been decent, but as it progressed, things got too confusing and it ruined the movie. Perhaps someone else may understand the plot better than I, but it just didn't work for me. 4/10.

these should be the words that best describe this film, although silliness and non sense have quite a strong presence here.

it's pointless to even attempt to describe the film's plot - there isn't a coherent one! the acting isn't all that bad, but one gets easily fed up with the never ending scenes that depict nothing at all and are simply confusing.

the scenes (painfully!) march slowly along towards an end that brings nothing new and unexpected to the genre. there are better films who manage to accomplish the effect this one tries (and fails!) to achieve, so i'd say there should be no reason for people to watch this film, unless they wish to decide for themselves just how poor can a film be.

i rented this movie last night hoping for a scary movie, something that would keep me entertained, and maybe i have watched too many scary movies and have become desensitized but this movie was bordering on hilarious rather than hair-standing-on-end scary. and i just didn't get it, nothing tied in together. this movie just provided you with a bunch of shots about a girl hallucinating and then in the end didn't explain any of it, and then added another ending scene that just seemed pointless. sure maybe it is supposed to make you think, but it just seemed....like a bunch of loose ends that never tied together. definitely a waste of time. i said in the first 13 minutes that i hoped it was only an hour and a half film. if you want a really good suspense film i say watch the skeleton key.

When the grandmother of the publicist Karin (Gina Phillips) dies, she inherits her property in the fields. She travels with her boyfriend Jeff (Randall Batinkoff) for the weekend, but she decides to stay along the week cleaning up the place and packing the stuffs. Karin has horrible nightmares and visions of ghosts of her past, while she stays in the house with the creepy housekeeper Pierce (Tom Sizemore) and her younger sister Wendy (Jenny Mollen).

"Ring Around the Rosie" has a non-sense, absurd, confused and unintelligible screenplay. The motives and actions of Karin, who behaves like a moron in spite of being a successful publicist, are never well explained. It seems that she had a traumatic experience in the house many years ago, and when she returned, she recalled and lived it again, blending nightmares with reality, but the director Rubi Zack was never able to explain the story. It seems also that each one of the four writers wrote one part of the story, but they forgot to interact and put the ideas together. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "O Mistério de Rosie" ("The Mystery of Rosie")