Refém do Espírito

Saw this at a film fest in Germany and its really not a bad horror drama. Marnie Watson (Famke Janssen) is released from prison but has to serve the rest of her sentence under house arrest. This is the same house in which she killed, in self defense, her Police Officer husband Mike Watson (Michael Paré).

Plot wise this movie falls a little bit flat. There is no explanation to all the events that occur in this film. Shanks seems to take a very strange interest in Marnie. Even to the point of parking outside her house and watching her day and night. But there is no real reason for this, he has a hunch that perhaps Marnie didn't kill Mike. The acting overall was fine, I quite like Janssen and she played this part well. Although I thought she was very calm considering the circumstances.

Directed by Eric Red, who I knew little about. When I checked it appears he has done other films, things like Cohen and Tate, and has quite a few writing credits. There are some nice well done scenes in this film, a few jump type moments but nothing really scary. There is one quite horrific scene in the bedroom when the ghost of Mike takes a dislike to Marnie's new beau. The effects were done well, though a little bit over dramatic at the end.

This is a Horror/Thriller but I would say leans more to the Horror genre than Thriller. It could have gone more down the Thriller route, and there were enough plot lines running through to create a decent Thriller.

All in all it was an enjoyable film that held my interest, but left me asking more questions than it answered.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Maybe more than I should have. It's amazing how this film could keep me interested when all I expected was to enjoy 90 minutes or so of Famke Janseen on my screen. She delivered a really good performance, naturally... but the highlight of the film was the ghost himself. Very scary stuff. I got goosebumps at every scene and that's hard to say with the recent garbage out there these days. As far as characters... well done. You ever watch those films where every line is like a narration for the audience? As if we're all dummies? Well, there's no instructional dialogue between characters here; it's just plain as day and straight to the point. Eric Red is really good director as well, I'll be looking for more of his work from here on out. Great effects, great story, I can only take off points just to be unbiased. I'm impressed. Hollywood should step back and take notes. This is how it's done. Stop stealing ideas from Japan and Korea. Use 100 Feet as a blueprint and you'll sell more tickets you hacks.

100 feet is an openly aggressive film that does well to keep your pulse pounding all the way up to the flat line ending. I enjoyed the idea behind the story and for the most part felt as though it was well portrayed. Several times you find yourself having to stretch your imagination in order to play along but nothing I would consider a deal breaker. I highly appreciated the amount of time and attention spent on the gore effects. On the other side of that coin a little more time and effort put into actually frightening the viewer would have been well received. Sadly this is a film that would have ranked much higher had the ending not brought the momentum to a stand-still. As is, still a decent flick.

This is a great thriller from Eric Red, the writer of Hitcher and many more. On the outside it's a budget haunted house horror flick, the kind that everybody used to make a couple of years ago, before the slashers came back. But this one stands out with its solid writing and impressive no nonsense execution. Eric Red took what was fashionable and made the most of it. He has quite a reputation with numerous classic genre films throughout the 80s and 90s that he has to live up to. And live up to it this movie does. Famke Janssen carries the film with ease. It doesn't take much time till you root for her because the character is as real a person as it gets in these movies. The supporting cast are all great too. Bobby Cannavale who plays the cop on a stakeout outside her house does a "young Chazz Palminteri", just what the role asks for. And Michael Pare who plays the ghost actually acts and acts well under the coat of blurry special effects and not a word of dialog save for a couple of grunts, not to mention he *is* scary. I enjoyed the hell out of it and I hope Eric Red continues to make movies this good.

The story starts with an interesting premise but soon goes overboard in depicting some gory scenes of a ghost's vengeance during which time much blood is shed for the sake of horror fans who like this sort of thing. It's well acted and tense with some quietly underplayed opening scenes, but once the ghost starts wreaking the place all hell breaks loose and the story loses a great deal of credibility.

The acting is fine, with Famke Janssen giving a strong performance as a woman forced to wear an ankle bracelet and kept under close watch by a suspicious policeman who was her husband's partner. But the tension doesn't become tight until the last third of the story and then it goes way over the top in depicting violence.

Scary enough but midway through, the story loses a lot of credibility despite the high quality of the performances.