Walled In - Murata viva

I rented this movie yesterday and really didn't expect much to be honest. Many current horror titles are very uninspired and frankly rely too much on gore and not enough on story or atmosphere. I was surprised though, it was an engaging story, taking inspiration for Poe perhaps, Agento and others which isn't a bad thing, and actually keeping a sense of its own identity and style. I love horror movies, especially ones that rely more on imagination and atmosphere, this one does to an extent but then focuses on the human element and becomes more of a thriller, in this I felt a little cheated.

The building which is the object of the movie is simply a nice piece of Gothic, deco art. Sinister and yet elegant in its simplicity, huge and monstrous in its presence. The premise works in the beginning and the actors do not disappoint. It is suggestion that works here as well as a psychological drama that is as twisted as an abnormal Mother and son relationship and dark secrets of the past mingled with arcane knowledge of the architecture of forbidden temples. Sadly though, I wished for more emphasis on the later aspect, it held my interest and fascination, but it veered into a film about a demented teenage crush. If more time had been spent on the architect, his history and theories as well as the previous murders then the chill factor would have been amped up.

The building should have been the real star here and its creator and to a large extent it is, yet it slowly is pushed into the background and dwarfed by a teenager's obsession and some of the dwellings rather seemed to be almost inconsistent in their art direction. The inhabited dwellings almost seemed cheap, bland compared to the overall presence of the building. It caused a sense of confusion, perhaps intentional.

Enjoyable yet flawed and could have been developed into a much richer film. It is still a fun view. I hope the director continues with the genre, though this film has its flaws, the director has potential.

I had high hopes for this movie after seeing the trailer. This could have been a good movie, but... The production team seemed to have run out of money, and then had to wrap it up really fast half way through, causing a hasty and staggering series of quick shots with "one-take" scenes. This, obviously, made the actors look bad and that's a shame. They did a good job at the beginning of the film. The first 20-30 minutes of the movie is actually pretty good, but I'll save you the time by saying that it went downhill FAST. I'll give you perspective that the budget of a film means nothing to me. Sure, I love the special effects that make the big-budget films soar and help tell the story, but I like the low-budget, indie films just as well, provided it tells a good story. This film has neither. When they started to rush, they lost the viewer by getting off track, and seemingly changing the actual story line, making it confusing, wobbly-paced, and completely destroying the story. Not intense, not scary, not interesting. Save your time and enjoy a good indie thriller or a big-budget film that you've yet to see.

Samantha Walczak (Mischa Barton) is the first Walczak to graduate college, and follows the family tradition of demolition, despite her love of architecture. She is sent on her first assignment to a building from an eccentric architect, Joseph Malestrazza, who cemented the bodies of people into his walls, including himself. This allegedly gives the building immortality, which is a bit of a problem when you're in charge of demolishing it. In the battle between demolition expert and spiritual architecture, who can win?

I watched this film, and found myself let down after the first ten minutes. I enjoyed the opening scene with a young girl becoming part of the building -- more scenes like this would have sold the film -- and the credits over newspaper articles detailing horrific murders tied to the building. But the remainder of the film just flopped and dragged like a captured fish out of water, and to say what I would say and say it better, I defer to the reviews of Michael DeZubiria and Horror.Com's Staci Layne Wilson. (I am reluctant to encourage readers to venture from Killer Reviews, but these are excellent writers.)

Wilson touches on all the right allusions, hinting that "Walled In" has aspects of Argento, Poe, Roeg, Polanski and Cocteau -- names you don't just throw around. DeZubiria compares the story in some respects to Mark Z. Danielewski's unique 2000 novel "House of Leaves". But Wilson is right when she says the directing "plays it safe" and falls short of all these looming figures, and the accompanying cinematography is "not very innovative", which is unfortunate for a film set in a building as interestingly bizarre as this one. DeZubiria flatly states that "Walled In" "blatantly rips off a whole series of other horror movies".

Wilson and DeZubiria both find the film discourages, rather than encourages, reading of the original book -- Serge Brussolo's novel "Les Emmeures". Wilson says "the movie quelled my curiosity" and DeZubiria bluntly says the book "must have been better than this movie" but "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to bring myself to read the book". As I found the plot to be largely a rehashing of "Thirteen Ghosts", and the storyline as given in the film to be boring, I have to concur -- the book is likely better than the film, but doesn't seem worth my time to seek out.

DeZubiria doesn't reveal the end, but says it's "so dumb that I don't want to bother spending my time explaining it", and that's a fair assessment. I seriously had a difficult time sitting through half the movie, it was a bit of cinematic torture to make it to the end. The "making of" featurette doesn't help or add any value to the DVD. Wilson rightly says it's nothing more than back-patting. If you want to see the cast and crew congratulate themselves on a boring movie, be my guest. But I think these two reviewers got it right -- there are many other authors and directors who deserve to have their films appreciated. Read and watch those novels and films, and leave this one to be quickly forgotten in your local video store's discount bin.

I never saw the trailer, but I can guess that it gives off the wrong impression. "Walled In" is not a horror movie, at least not like "The Ring" or "Saw" or anything that features murderous ghosts, demented psychopaths and rivers of blood. So if that's what you're looking for, I hope I saved you 100 minutes of your life.

Instead, "Walled In" is basically a slow paced mystery. The story is about a young rookie demolition engineer named "Sam" (Mischa Barton) whose first job is to survey and plan the demolition of a very creepy and cool building where 15 years prior, a bunch of grizzly murders took place and the killer was never found. Although this premise may lead you to expect a Saw like serial killer game of cat-and-mouse, the story took a different approach. This is really about Sam slowly piecing together the puzzle of what happened and trying to solve this cold case.

Is it terrifying? No. It is creepy? Yes. Largely due to the formidable building (which supposedly doesn't exist in real life but had me fooled enough to spend an hour unsuccessfully googling where it was located), the dark, desolate vibe of this film is very powerful. The lighting is very dramatic with extreme dark and shadows, much like the Exorcist III insane asylum scenes, and the color palette is very rusty. I don't remember seeing any greens except in the very beginning. We are immersed in a visually surreal world that expresses decay.

But I stress again that this is not a gory slasher supernatural horror flick, even though the visual style looks that way. I would put it in the same genre as "Dream House" (2011), "Rosewood Lane" (2011) or maybe even "The Sixth Sense" (1999). Like all of these films, the mystery has its fair share of surprises, and I have to say I didn't see the twist coming, but after thinking about it for a while it made perfect sense, and all the characters' bizarre actions were explained. It should be noted that this is an adaptation of a best selling novel, so the book probably goes into more detail. But this still worked for me.

I thought Mischa Barton's acting was excellent, playing an inexperienced heroine without being an idiot. Almost all of the acting and casting seemed to fit perfectly. The only exception was, surprisingly, Cameron Bright, whom I loved in the similarly-vibed mystery romance "Birth". Here he reprises a similar characterization of an emotionless mystery kid, but in "Walled In" I felt like his role could have added more value if he were more explosive. But who knows, maybe the director was making the point that that growing up in a creepy, isolated concrete monolith all his life would lead to a severe lack emotional development.

"Walled In" definitely presents a lot of psychological food for thought, and I haven't even touched on the really cool artistic and historical themes of architecture that play heavily. Definitely not a gut-grabbing slasher flick, but if you've read this far, then I think you should give this flick a whirl. I really enjoyed this movie and wouldn't hesitate to see anything else the director does.

This movie really isn't terrible. It's a little weird, but it's well shot and the acting is decent. I'd watch if again if I were drunk or bored- or both.