Inheritance

It has truly been a while since a movie has stuck with me this long. INHERITANCE peels away at the layers of fear and rubs your nerve endings raw until all you are left with is the fear itself. This movie haunts you long after the standard "scary" film would have vanished from your psyche. It can be likened to an addict with two persona's. One persona is lively and full of worth, yet the second persona is lingering somewhere between a death wish, and the kind of hangover that makes you wake up in a cold sweat wondering what in the hell you might have done the night before. If you loved "The Shining", do yourself a favor and fall in love with Inheritance.

Mrs. Lillian Baker (Nelson) is a dynamic, but elderly woman who has to resort to having a caretaker, a young woman named Abby (Taylor), to help her get around. It seems clear that the bitter woman is close to death but seems to have something up her sleeve. After passing away, Abby soon discovers that the spirit of Mrs. Baker has taken up residence in her own body. The two souls battle for the one body in this mildly effective independent film. Director and co-writer Kris Kristensen does not set out to make a shock and gore show, but instead uses subtle tension and psychological scares to fill his movie. The performances are good, especially from Marjorie Nelson as Mrs. Baker. We really feel her frustration at being old and the flashes of menace do supply some chills. Fans of subtle character driven horror will enjoy this with a fun twist at the end. If you are looking for jumps, shocks or searing horror, then look elsewhere.

A tight little thriller that plays more on the intellect than the gut, although there were definitely a couple of scenes that had me quite tense. Nelson and Taylor give fine performances, and the camera work and pacing keep your interest throughout. The avoidance of clichéd "jump scenes", and the fact that most of this suspense/thriller flick is shot in daylight provides a pleasant contrast to the now mundane teen slasher/startlers, and adds increased drama to the scenes that are set at night or in darkened surroundings. The ending is also quite satisfying, allowing you to think for yourself and decide which of several possible explanations for the events in the movie is the solution. Thumbs up!

This movie is not intelligent, and there is nothing contemporary about it. It is not Hitchcock-like, and does not resemble the Shining in any way whatsoever. It is shot with a hand-held camera, and resembles a home video. Don't get excited, though, and think "Ah, like Blair Witch!" It's not like Blair Witch either. It truly does look like it was shot at someone's house on bored Sunday afternoon. I kept waiting for the camera to pull back and show the protagonists watching videos they had made, but it was not to be. The acting is appalling, to say the least. Avoid at all costs, and reprimand your video store owner for displaying it on the shelf. It is unbelievable that anyone would actually give this a 10.

The copy I screened was packaged nicely. I admit that 3/4 of the way through it I almost shut it off. But bad movies get made all the time. This isn't the unusual thing about this DVD. Upon reading the reviews here at IMDb, I'm convinced that most of the reviewers had to be in the filmmaker's camp. There is no other way to explain someone actually saying "this is a great film." The story, directing and acting are all mediocre at best. But how they got the lead is really a mystery. Her full frontal sex scene is somehow more embarrassing when you start thinking how they talked her into it. Did she think this was going to be a critical success, a breakthrough role for her? I don't know. After a little research I discovered that the producer and director are the team that created the wonderful short film "Whiteface." How they made a picture like this is a good question indeed. Now, I did visit the website. This is where things get even more bizarre. They started a petition to try to get the film distributed into theaters. They somehow reasoned (according to the website) that the lead's previous voice work for the xbox game "Halo" would somehow be a box office draw.