Les ombres du désert

OK, I saw the previews, and immediatly said to myself, there's some possibilities with that one. I watched it, and I must admit, I was held captive for the two hours. I mean, I didn't want to turn it off, or go channel surfing. It was entertainning, and suspenceful. Now, I MUST admit, it had an ALFUL lot of tv horror movie CLICHES. The very first scene was a bit over done and almost turned me off. There was NOTHING original about it, I had that feeling of seen it, been there, done this before. But yet, it still was kinda fun to do it again.

It didn't really drag anywhere, the pace was decent, but the ending left me a bit confussed. I don't know if it just was a total let-down and cop-out, or a stroke of genius on the story-line. Actually, it had that Jeepers Creepers ending feeling, kinda like the evil won nad the good was over-come. All the question were left UN-ANSWERED, and left you with an unsolved mystery.

Is it demonic? Is it aliens? What is it? What is happening? Were those the REAl people at the end? Does everyone die and get "replaced" with mindless drones?

I wonder if they are planning a sequel to this, because it felt like part one to a mini-series, and I'm still waiting for part two.

Overall, the movie was good. There wasn't much originality but a really big plus was given because there wasn't much violence. Don't get me wrong: I don't hate horror/mystery movies with gore, but it is a very refreshing change when a movie comes out with little or no violence. Yes, the end of the movie was open-ended but that was intended to leave the viewer's imagination run wild. For those of you who hate making sense of the ending and don't want to think up what happened...I came up with one. So, if you haven't seen this movie yet, please don't read the rest unless you want the ending to be spoiled for you. I've decided that the boy, Matt, who took pictures of everything became that black-bird...because, remember, at the very end we see the desert in the bird's point-of-view and then it takes a snapshot of it's view, like Matt would have. I'm thinking that the old man in the begining at the restuarant took the body of the little girl since at the very end she sees a motorcycle and says "Nice bike" as the old man looked at the family's car in the begining and says "Nice car." There's lots of symbolism in this. I'd also like to say that I think that there wasn't just one "creature." It was probably a cross between a bird and human. How else would things like that be able to walk and fly?

Good movie. Good ending.

This movie kept me on the edge of my seat until the final few minutes of it. The conclusion left many unanswered questions. With a different ending it would be 5 stars. I would give it 4. The characters are believable and the kids' weren't annoying. I would compare it to a 2 hour Twilight Zone episode.

Disappearance is about a couple who take their family on vacation in New Mexico and find themselves in deep trouble after taking a detour off the main highway to visit a town that was seemingly abandoned in 1948 for unknown reasons. The town of Weaver seems harmless at first and has tourist appeal until the family is stranded there overnight and they begin to have good reason to suspect that others have experienced their same predicament with fatal outcomes. The Henleys watch a Blair-Witch-Project-esquire video diary left by the town's last victim, which ironically demonstrates the best performance of anyone in this movie. Although Hamlin and Dey's performances are much better than the supporting casts', their emotional affect seems "flat" to me throughout the movie.

Disappearance has appeal for most of the movie as there is much suspense and good direction. However, the plot takes unexpected and implausible turns that seemingly make no sense. Worse yet it that there really is no understanding of what exactly is going on in the movie, which makes the bizarre ending less tolerable. It appeared to me that the movie makers were so focused on making a stream of suspenseful scenes, that they threw away all the elements of good story making: plot development, gradual explanation of themes and symbols that lead to a cohesive solution/outcome.

The most difficult aspect of the movie for me was that the first three-quarter of it was spent building up tension and curiosity about certain aspects of the plot that were then suddenly disposed of as if we didn't deserve an explanation:

What was the significance of the Indian symbols on the walls? What happened to the original people of Weaver? What was the connection with the people at the dinner? What did the Sheriff know? What did the missing boy discover if anything?

This was, I believe, a bad move, since it engendered some resentment. I had invested quite a bit of brainpower into hypothesizing some plausible explanations for some of these plot turns and strange events, only to have the movie makers simply end it without giving an answer to any of these things. These are some nice cliffhangers for the ending of a miniseries that is about to pickup again next week, but a totally frustrating and inappropriate ending for a stand-alone movie.

It seems that people either love or hate this movie. Personally i thought it was really exceptional for a TV horror movie. The people who dislike this movie are probably the people who thought The Blair Witch Project was scary.

Disappearance truly creeped me out, which is very difficult for a film to do. I watch just about every horror film out there and very few really "scare" me, but Disappearance comes very close to doing the deed.

You never see what is really the evil force throughout the movie, and i liked that a lot. Many horror films show the "monster" or "evil" or whatever you wish to call it later near the end to the film, or sometimes earlier. This strayed away from that and it leaves you wondering about what it really was. Plus, a family trapped in a ghost town in the middle of the desert makes an exceptional horror tale.

I thought the script, acting, and direction were all very well done. I also liked the music score a lot. There weren't any lame "happy pop" songs which seem to proliferate today's horror movies, and consequently make them all fail due to that fact. Disappearance went back to a direction of the old-school style creating a truly malevolent score for the movie.

I am very glad i rented this little gem, and will surely be adding this to my personal DVD collection.