The Appointment

Three years ago, the 12-year old Sandy Freemont disappeared after taking a shortcut through the woods. The mystery is yet to be solved.

'The Appointment' is an interesting film. There are supernatural elements, but very subtle. Then there are the creepy dogs. One never really knows whether they are related, but both forces are frightening in their own right.

The film also contains family drama, with Ian (Edward Woodward) having to leave town for an appointment on the same day of his daughter, Joanne's first classical concert. Joanne is upset when she realizes he will miss the concert, and throughout the evening she keeps nagging him about it. There are suggestive moments that makes one believe Ian fooled around with his daughter, or still is, but this never surfaces.

Some scenes linger on purpose to create an unnerving suspense I haven't felt in a movie in a while. Ian's sleepless night before he had to leave, was incredibly suspenseful - thanks to clever photography and editing. That night - which seemed to go on forever (in a good way!) - had me on the edge of my seat.

Soon we realize his dreams were actually a premonition, with Ian's fate being sealed. 'The Appointment' is a horror movie without blood, guts and gore, but it is horrifying in a psychological sense - and creepy as hell. You have to read between the lines to fully understand it, though. There's more going on here than you might think.

Unlike some other reviews, I didn't find this particularly strange or ambiguous - especially if you have watched a few classic horrors/thrillers from around that time. It is dated in the build-up, and could have done with some editing to keep the tension tighter. But without giving the plot away, I think it is fairly explicit about what is going on and why - and with a little thought, what had happened 3 years earlier. The acting is terrific, and the film is inventive in how it tells the story, making exceptional use of what must have been a limited budget with some lingering set pieces that I will never forget to boot. I would class this as a slow burner thriller with horror elements, based primarily around 24 hours in a family's life. A slow, sometimes very slow journey, but a rewarding detour nonetheless.

It's fairly clear what's coming (the actual execution of that is done very well) but the journey there is immensely creepy and atmospheric. The fact that there are so many loose ends and merely hinted-at tensions (the relationships with the wife and daughter; the whole business in the garage; the opening sequence; the dogs) makes it all the better. Fine performance by Ed Wood Wood Wood and (on a smaller scale) the rest of the cast. I enjoyed it a lot, although it's very much the kind of thing I like! The Lake, included as an extra on my Blu-ray, was also very good, with Julie Peasgood and another big dog.

The Appointment is a genuinely foreboding supernatural thriller. Intelligently conceived, meticulously paced, it quietly and deftly unravels the disquieting course of events until the astonishing final scene. While it is set in a very ordinary, quiet English town, there is an almost palpable atmosphere of pent-up malevolence, introduced in the opening scene, and persistent throughout. Whether it emanates from a human being or it is something all together different, is left to your imagination to decide. Ian (Edward Woodward) is about to embark on an unexpected long trip to a business meeting. His daughter (Samantha Weysom), a musically gifted but peculiar girl who is overly attached to her father, takes it to heart when he has to leave instead of attending her violin recital. The girl is cloying and demanding, driving her mother Dianna (Jane Merrow) to the edge of impatience. The girl pleads with him not to go until his tight-lipped tolerance finally snaps, only to regret it and be condemned to a restless night. Troubled by his daughter's behaviour, and anxious about the long drive the following morning, sleep eludes him, until, finally dozing off, he experiences a pervasive disturbing dream. The inclusion of dreams in films is so often fascinating, and rich in symbolism, and sometimes the dreams can be portents or forewarnings that the dreamer should heed, but rarely do. There are carefully placed clues to caution him from taking the trip, from an incident in the garage repairing his car, to the moment, halfway to his to his journey's end, he calls home and is cut off just as his wife is telling him she had the same dream. She is feeling that something is amiss but doesn't have the chance to tell him to turn back. Although he observes a number of troubling motifs as he drives, he cannot make sense of them and continues on. Even an opportunity to alter the outcome, when he realises his watch has stopped and inadvertently left it in the phone booth after calling his wife. He returns to retrieve it, and proceeds on his way. Woodward is superb as an overwrought man who appears to have an unshakable feeling that things are not quite as they seem, and that his destination is also his destiny. This film might not make you jump out of your skin, but it will haunt you with an uneasy feeling of dread long after the extraordinary ending of one man's appointment with fate.

I daresay I have seen my fair share of slow-brooding, mystical, cryptic, and subliminal thrillers/horror movies already. Some of them are brilliant and incomparable to anything ever seen before, but most of them are overly complex, pretentious, and unworthwhile. "The Appointment" is a bizarre case, to say the least, because it balances somewhere in the middle.

The suspense building and overall ominous atmosphere in this movie can only be described as pure genius. Even though absolutely nothing happens during approximately 50-60% of the running time (endless pans of an empty living room at night, long winding roads, ...) you're still guaranteed to gaze at the screen because the music and photography are so foreboding. The tension in "The Appointment" is literally unbearable. But for what?

The story opens with the unsolved disappearance case of a young girl. Four years later, in the same community, high school teenager Joanne looks forward to her music recital - including her very first violin solo - in the presence of her parents. But then her daddy announces that he cannot attend, due to an emergency at work, and must leave early in the morning to travel. Joanne is exaggeratedly (childishly) disappointed, and that same night both her parents are plagued by nightmares and visions about daddy's trip ending in tragedy. And, of course, they turn out disturbingly real the next day.

What are we supposed to assume? Is Joanne paranormally gifted and does she - deliberate or not - inflict a curse on her father for not attending her recital? If that is the case, I don't want to know what'll happen to the first boyfriend who cheats on her, or a future colleague who steals a promotion! And what is then the link with the missing girl from the intro? Did she also somehow "wronged" Joanne-from-Hell? As usual with these type of films, you're not getting any answers or clarification. I can praise writer/director Lindsey C. Vickers for his obvious talent of generating suspense, but what is the point if there isn't a real (and plausible) story to tell?