The Attic

After moving to an old house with her family, Emma Callan (Elisabeth Moss) is agoraphobic and haunted by a doppelganger that lives in the attic. Emma stops going to college and has friction with her father Graham (John Savage). When Emma is attacked by the ghost in the attic, she is sent to therapy with Dr. Perry (Thomas Jay Ryan) by her mother Kim (Catherine Mary Stewart); only Detective John Trevor (Jason Lewis) believes on her statement and he helps Emma to investigate her doppelganger. When her slow brother Frankie Callan (Tom Malloy) is slashed on the throat, Trevor gives a gun to Emma for her self-protection.

"The Attic" from the cult-director Mary Lambert is that type of horror movie that has potential but unfortunately fails. The main reason is the terrible development of the characters, and the viewer sees the series of weird events without knowing Emma, Graham, Frankie or Kim or their relationship, disclosed only in the end. The acting of important characters is very weak and does not help to save or at least improve the story. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Sotão" ("The Attic")

The film held my interest, I'll admit, but right from the beginning, you were left hanging as to what was happening. The so called psychosis of the main character was virtually unexplained from the beginning, the paramedic "ally" appeared all too conveniently and the Wiccan symbols were explained away like they had nothing to do with the plot.

What I did like, however, was that it wasn't the typical slasher film. I also enjoyed the complex nature of the circumstances-if they'd presented them better! I'd seriously consider a remake of this, tweaked, of course.

It's too bad the budget wasn't adequate.

I'd rather be locked in a room watching 'The Pumpkin Carver' for a year straight then to have to subject myself to this bullshit. I've never seen such horrible acting in my 25 years of existence and I pray that people read this before ever watching this "movie". I would rather gauge my eyes out with my toes...I needed to keep watching it to see what happens and I wish I could take back the 80 minutes of my life. All the crew that were involved in making this movie should be forced to be locked in a room for life repeating the movie over and over and be tortured. I've already wasted enough time in writing this blog about this monstrosity, but I needed to warn people!! 0 OUT OF 10.....HORRIBLE!

The basic plot for the story is that a teenage girl keep's seeing a different girl who looks exactly like her in the mirror, she goes crazy and everyone think's she's lieing. That is the most unoriginal story I have ever heard. Okay, I'll be fair, it's not the worst movie ever, but..the writing was so lousy and lazy it was unbelievable. The acting was just terrible and Elizabeth Moss looked just stupid she was so bad. If you want to see a good horror movie, don't watch this. This movie disappointed me so much. The shame is, is that, yeah, the story is unoriginal and plain but, if the writers had developed more on the story and planned a little bit more then maybe I would of given the movie a 4 or 5 out of 10. If the writers had planned the characters and really thought out the movie rather than just writing down whatever popped into there head, the movie might of worked a little bit more than it did.

I'm rating this two, as the camera work and direction was, err..okay, for the budget they were on ($7000).

PS - About half an hour into the movie, her older brother who has the mind of a child, mentions that his sister keeps a diary. Now, this is when you start thinking, hmm...maybe the story and the characters will unfold within this diary and think it's going to get a bit more interesting, but the diary is never mentioned or shown again in the whole movie!!! Also, As for the scene were the girl makes a move on her own father just puzzled me! In fact, the only thing that actually unfolds the characters throughout the movie is the fact her mother and father turn out to be raging lunatics who use witchcraft.

Bad, Very bad movie! 2/10.

It was a great premise for a movie, but the acting totally dumped it. The script was pretty bag, but the acting for most of the characters was horrible. The brother was probably the best actor in the bunch. If only they had taken the time to put out a good product this would have been a heck of a sleeper. Maybe someone with an actual budget or at least actors who give a rip can do better with this story. Needed more back story, so many questions it wasn't even funny. We should have been told somehow about the history of the house, and the families histories would have been nice too. The psychiatrist was good and the father could have been better, as i have seen him do better as an actor,but i think he was calling this one in cause he felt it was full of garbage too. This was so bad that my kids even said it was the worst they have ever seen and they pretty much watch anything.