liderc

A fine ghost story, told well by experienced director Uli Edel. Focus is on suspense and emotion, as the grief and shock experienced by the parents is explored strongly in the first half or so. It has been described in negative reviews as a poor man's Insidious, but that misses the point of the movie entirely. This is a classic Halloween ghost story, and not supposed to be a shock fest about demons or Satan. The only thing that made me shake my head is how college or university professors in Hollywood get away with giving ridiculously amateurish and shallow lectures, and are still always portrayed as successful, admired and beloved by students... Well, so be it.

It starts out as an intriguing Whodunit, with lots of secrets from the past getting finally unearthed -- like the corpse being finally discovered at the beginning.

But after some episodes, sadly it becomes all too obvious that the script writers actually had an oversexed, schlocky take on The Bold and the Beautiful and similar dailies in mind. The dead DJ and his teenaged friends are actually nothing but shallow, self-absorbed amateurs, his sister is a naive, self-centered bunch of nerves, and the former teenagers have grown up into somewhat daft, unlikeable posh addicts. To keep the viewers going, one crazy, over the top twist or side plot is introduced after the other, the most hilarious one being the incest storyline involving a nymphomaniac bored housewife.

People seem to praise the character Boxer unnecessarily high. Despite the good looks of the actor, the man is nothing but another whining narcissist populating the garish, decadent island Ibiza is portrayed to be here. In the end, you wish the protagonist wouldn't just scatter some ashes and babble on about the free life here, but blow up this Venus fly trap for the naive and party addicted.

Which is very very unfair towards the real island of Ibiza, it's cultural inheritance and it's locals fed up with the crazy tourists overload, of course.