Silhouette

This is a dark movie. I mean that every scene is shot in very low light, sometimes to the point of making you strain to see what is going on. Probably this was intended to add to the depressing and gloomy feeling of the main characters, but some light and less shaky camera work would hardly cheer it up. The woman is clearly a basket case, and maybe the film seems slow because so much time is spent showing this. For a low budget film, it's a worthy effort, and it's a good story, but I found it kind of dragging along. I would have liked a clearer understanding of how the husband felt, without just seeing him look sad all the time. His character is left to just show us that he seeks out other female company, but he is never shown explaining why. I guess his wife has always been a bit of a basket case? Or has been since the child got sick? This is a very grim tale, but not particularly scary. I watch a lot of horror movies, so those who do not as well may find it more scary. It is not gory, there is some blood but nothing gross. Personally, I like my grim tales to be a bit more terrifying, or more of a thriller. The actors are good, it's not a bad movie, especially for the budget, but I can't help feeling this could have been better.

I attended Bare Bones Film Festival this week and was personally invited by director Mitch McCleod to watch his movie Silhouette.

I don't really like horror movies but my husband does so we went to watch it.

I have to say that my high rating is because I appreciated that it was a well done movie despite some of my own feelings. I did not like this movie. It's scary, disturbing, depressing, and unpleasant and I felt nauseous after watching it, mostly because of the finale.

Still, McCleod did a wonderful job evoking those emotions and the movie is a well told story with good acting by everybody involved.

It wasn't for me but I give it a high rating because if you like scary movies then you're going to enjoy this.

It is certainly not the best movie in terms of production, but the story is interesting - with a good twist at the end, and the acting could be a little better.

But then - it is a really low budget film, so it deserves huge kudos for pulling off a film like this.

I don't always like the slow movies but there was enough horror and good acting to hold my interest and the story was somewhat unique. Some people might not like it if they need constant horror but it was just enough on the edge to be enjoyable.

Not a lot of gore but what it had was good. Male nudity but no female but there is a sex scene. +1 for the smoking hot red head. Yum.

Troubled by the loss of her daughter, a woman plagued by brutal nightmares heads off with her husband to a remote house in the countryside to help move on, yet when she's convinced someone is haunting the house from her past she sets out to figure out what's going on to save her sanity.

Overall, this one proved to be a wholly enjoyable effort. One of the greatest aspects featured here is the exceptionally strong and well-balanced drama that starts the storyline. Bolstered by a believable tragedy, the grief and shock from the incident rightfully keep her hesitant, reluctant and withdrawn for a large part of the film's first half as they move into the new house. Understandably unable to cope with the tragedy despite the efforts of a shrink to help her on top of moving to a new, quiet house out in the country as a complete surprise that all moves towards making for a reasonable rationale for her behavior. When this is enhanced by the interactions they have trying to settle in, ranging from the disrupted sexual encounter to the threatening notions against the friendly neighbor and the reactions to her medication, the first half her is quite impressive at building an engaging and immersive drama. Hanging off this build-up is a fine collection of haunting scenes that are wholly chilling and creepy. A dream where she ventures out into the woods thinking it's her daughter only to be confronted face-to-face with another ghost entirely is creepy, as is the encounter alone in the house where the spirit attacks her and drags her across the floor. A later nightmare involving a figure killing and cutting up others in front of her has some surreal moments with the bright red lighting throughout the scene, much like the frantic nightmare she has later features plenty of flash-cut images and distorted camera angles of the ghosts appearing before her which also doubles to fill in some of the missing plot-points about his extramarital affairs from earlier. The finale, featuring an incredibly gruesome and brutal outcome based on the various side-plots that have gone on, gives this a solid and satisfying conclusion to this one. While there isn't much wrong here, the film does have a few issues. One of the biggest problems is the utterly cliched and unnecessary side-plot involving the husband who hits every single trademark in these movies without exception. Despite initially appearing as though he's trying to help her, every time she brings up the ghosts he dismisses her story and calls her crazy, has a backstory featuring him cheating on her yet was forgiven for it and as a result, he doesn't do much overall here with him spending more and more time away from her later in the film. It's lazy and hackneyed to keep going to these same tropes for this character in these movies as it doesn't produce drama at all but instead contempt for utilizing that setup once again when numerous other films have already done this concept better. The pacing might skew towards drama too often for some hardcore horror fans who'll think this is slow and dull, but otherwise, there aren't many other flaws here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Brief Nudity and a clothed sex scene.