Inner Ghosts

Whoa... +1 Star For Helen's 'Tell me your name' Scene!!!

-1 For What seemed to be a fairly unsatisfying ending.

It was an intriguing story to me up til the end and even the last 1/3 of the movie was pretty good.

The end left quite a bit to be desired for me but I'd still have to give a passing grade for the film, albeit barely.

When the last 7 minutes of the movie consist of strobe light as if it were a rave, then you surely understand the level.

So, story goes that Helen is a medium who gave it up to study the "spiritual" element in living humans as means to communicate with those that don't have the ability to manage their memory and cognitive process well enough, such as in the case of dementia. But first she has to practice on ghosts. This produced a hysterical scene of Helen giving a ghost a mini-mental status exam question. Priceless! But, alas, poor Helen becomes fixated on the communication with ghosts and training two others who have psychic abilities. (This film posits that one can develop psychic abilities if you have the beginning abilities and are open to expanding on these.) She is rebuked by her partner (is it a business venture? an academic setting? I'm not certain.) as it isn't profitable to build research and sellable applications using ghost communication as a basis. This all leads to more improbable boring material as 3-D printing becomes essential to the process of communicating with the deceased. Somehow. This one I feel is more to be blamed on the contrivances of the script and the lazy plot points to get to the end of the story with their "shocker" of a turn of events. Hohum.

If you're looking for horror you won't find it here. The Demon never does anything significant, and nothing truly happens. Try if you like, but you've been warned.

The story is a very complex, creative exploration of paranormal activity and psuedo-scientific applications. I say psuedo, but the logic behind this concept could very well be tested in mainstream science. Not all of the material but the basic stuff. "Inner Ghosts" is a good, layered story that mixes practical ghost story themes with more fantastical elements.

The acting is pretty good, the characters are fully developed and relatable. At times it gets a bit too theatrical and overly dramatic, but a story where contact with ghosts in order to test and explore intelligence in an attempt to find real world application isn't meant to play straight. The writing may stretch ones sense of belief but it is well done.

"Inner Ghosts" is atmospheric and filled with all the expected ghosty stuff you expect to see. At times, even with certain characters, the film is very reminiscent of "Insidious", but with a more scientific research edge. The cinematography is great. The real horror parts don't show up till the 50 minute mark. Then the film spirals into more Clive Barker territory.

Overall I have some mixed thoughts towards "Inner Ghosts". I loved the story, very interesting and layered. I thought the acting was strong. I do feel that the film runs a little too long, spends too much time on the melodrama character structure for the first 50 minutes. The last 40 is impactful and hits the horror elements strong, but during the ending the story become confusing, just a bit. Still the film is a strong indie paranormal thriller.