Identidade Paranormal

I caught this film on Netflix the other night in the "recommended for me" section. It certainly looked promising: a taut psychological thriller with Julianne Moore as Dr. Cara Harding, a forensic psychologist trying to disprove a diagnosis of multiple personality disorder in mental patient David/Adam/Wesley (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).

But it quickly morphs from the cooly clinical and scientific to hillbilly voodoo and fundie religious hokum replete with a hot, steaming, incomprehensible -- some of it kind of fun in its incoherence -- compost heap of plot elements: the 1918 flu epidemic; skin rashes; chronic coughs yielding -- ughh -- dirt; slip-and-falls; spinal injuries; atheism; Catholicism; faith healers; vaccines; curses; snake venom potions; apparitions on video; and a suddenly discovered -- and quite laughable -- silent film, replete with +90 year old narrator. There's even a test for red-green color blindness.

And, like the antagonist, this film suffers from an identity crisis. Is it a psychological thriller? A slasher / stalker film? A medical mystery? A serial killer whodunnit? A witchcraft / occult movie? I enjoyed just trying to figure out what the producers had in mind. This is like a film made my committee (or someone with multiple personality disorder).

Saving grace: A good faith try at making the crazy script work by Moore. And an enthusiastically evil performance Meyers, though he needs to take an intensive "American accents" workshop. That southern twangy thing was the worst, and so not right for upper Apalachia.

But all-in-all, I actually like really bad, messy movies, especially those that try so hard. Maybe Netflix knows me afterall? Hence the six -- how appropriate -- stars rating.

6 SOULS has a compelling and unique storyline that nicely intermixes spiritual and psychological elements: There are some very original ideas here. It's well-produced and cinematized with realistic acting by all. It has the necessary focus but still leaves room for individual interpretation, the sort of film that you can watch multiple times, picking up new details and subtleties with each view. At times it seems pro-Christian, at times anti-Christian, or at least critical of the superstitious-fundamentalist brand of Christianity. Again, the religious elements are clear enough yet also vague enough.

The plot does drag and meander a good bit. There are also some of the usual tired old demon-tropes (people throwing up black goop, etc). Still,this film has a fairly solid mythos behind it and relies more on surprise and suspense than it does raw schlock. While nothing truly special, 6 SOULS is probably worth seeing if you like psychological/supernatural horror and have been disappointed by most other recent films in this genre.

The ending leaves room for an interesting sequel. . .7 SOULS?

I can't easily recall a movie that started better and ended worse.

During the first few minutes, I kept thinking, "Man! what are all the negative reviews about?" The camera-work was not only good, but stylish and captivating. The framing, the acting, the dialogue, the plot — everything was firing on all cylinders. It had interesting characters with real relationships who said things that made sense, whose lines were delivered by actors who could act...

And then the darned thing just went off the rails. The more Julianne Moore's character went off on her own investigations, the more meandering and "Huh?" the story became. Then by the last half-hour or so, you're just waiting for the whole thing to be over. You've lost hope that it will make sense. Which is good. Because it doesn't.

Pity. It had all the elements for a really first-rate movie; but instead of coming together to form a coherent whole, they all scattered and left the viewer gasping for sense.

Shelter has dealt with an unfair start into cinemas, it was ready for release way back in 2010 and now it's finally being released On Demand and in limited theaters under its new title 6 Souls. The movie starts with the introduction of Cara Harding, a female forensic psychiatrist played by Julianne Moore, who just finished wrapping up her current case, when her father Dr. Harding approaches her with a new case. Cara is hesitant at first but soon agrees to take the job and soon discovers that not only does her new patient has multiple personalities but all of them are murder victims, we are then taken on a tailspin with her to figure out why this is happening.

The movie has its moments of grotesque eeriness that gets under your skin but just not a lot of scares or action. The story just gets lost in its own complexity of twists with not much payoffs. For a movie that is almost 2 hours long it just didn't accomplish that much or had any moments that stood out to me. The film does have a lot of spooky imagery with creepy locations, but just didn't take full advantage of them. The film starts off well as a psychological thriller and character study, and then when the horror elements seep in, the film's effectiveness fades away and becomes illogical.

The intense and focused performances are where this film shines. Julianne Moore can do any role justice and in this problematic film she proves it with her raw emotions and mesmerizing red head beauty. Julianne plays Cara Harding, a forensic psychiatrist who picks up the most challenging cases of her career when she meets her new patient who has a multiple personality disorder. Jonathan Rhys Meyers gives a captivating performance as David/Adam/Wesley and is probably the very best I've seen from him so far. Jonathan's performance could have been an over the top mess if approached the wrong way, but he made it organic and gripping to watch. The supporting actors were not half bad either and also made it watch able.

Directors, Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein prove that maybe two heads aren't that better than one to tackle a flawed story. They do create a certain atmosphere that evokes fear and some stomach turning images but didn't really know how to end the story effectively or answer all of our questions. Writer, Michael Cooney seems to have made the same mistakes here that he did with his other screenplay Identity, which also had a great start but ruined it for me with it's lousy last half that was also illogical, his stories are just uneven to me, but I do like his effort for trying to bring something different to this mostly unoriginal genre.

Overall, I can see why they waited so long to release the film, but it deserves a much better treatment than the crap like Texas Chainsaw 3D, which made its way to movie theaters way to easily than this. The film lacks scares, thrills and the story leads to no payoff, but the performances are solid, the atmosphere, imagery are spooky and the concept is a nice change of pace. The movie as a whole could have been so much better and executed with a more terrifying impact, but it's a whole lot more decent than what it got treated as, so it's granted at least one viewing if you want something different from the norm. Just don't expect too much from this one.

Supernatural isn't my cup of tea, but I will give points to Shelter for doing more than just keeping me in my seat. At times, it reminded me of Shyamalan's better days. Though very much a slow mover, Shelter is haunting and gripping, shot perfectly and never too superficial. Julianne Moore, is a compelling lead, and there is enough 'human' in the character to deserve some credit, and earn some sympathy from the viewer. Horror movies almost by nature, don't have a heart, but this is one of the few that has some.

The one problem with the movie, is that the plot is heavy. The first hour may seem a little disoriented, but the scenario brings everything together with enough coherency in the last act. The matter in which it does so however raises some questions that are left unanswered, and could qualify as plot holes.

As a straight to video release, one would not typically set high expectations. Shelter exceeded mine, It's not a film for an impatient viewer, but it's an appetizing ghost story if you are looking for one such film.