Jennifer's Shadow

I fell asleep halfway through. Ditto on the second attempt, though I did manage to catch a few scenes and the TWO annoying endings.

Jennifer annoyed me. By the end of the film, I didn't care what became of her.

Ms. Dunaway was once a great actress, but her lifted/filled/injected face just can't communicate emotion anymore. Guess that's why she resorted to near-comical melodrama for this part.

The ending (the second one) just made me wonder why the heck I bothered staying awake through (most) of the film.

If someone made it through the entire film and wants to explain just what the heck I missed, I'd appreciate it, since I'm not up to giving this bore-fest another run.

Jennifer Cassi (Gina Philips from "Dead and Breakfast") returns back to the house she grew up in which she recently inherited from her deceased sister, unbeknownst to her grandmother (Fay Dunaway) who's still living in it. Jennifer decides to sell it as she's in dire need of the money much to Granny's chagrin. She also begins to have troublesome recurring nightmares of a mysterious raven. There was really no one to relate to in this film. Jennifer seemed cold, distant, unsentimental, and narcissistic, whereas the grandmother seemed spiteful, sad, and also narcissistic. The film is good and well-made, but with no one to empathize with I found it hard to care about what happened to them.

My Grade: C-

What few actors that were in the movie all had a good feel for this deep, psychological horror story. It involves a family curse, that takes members of a wealthy family to a place worse than death. Faye Dunaway sells this perverted material but is at times hilarious, with flashes of campy brilliance, (especially near the end). If you like simple, inspired horror stories, a la Rod Serling, then this is for you. Its too bad our American audiences don't care enough about intelligent, disturbing stories like this one. The bitchiness between sexy Gina Philips and hot older mama Faye Dunaway is wicked and classic.

The only reason I rented this was because of the article in Fangoria Magazine. The article made this film look interesting. Well, it isn't. This was a very boring, amateurishly written and directed movie. All the actors in this movie are awful, except Faye Dunaway, who is always a joy to watch. But too much time was focused on Gina Phillips and her ridiculous encounters with ravens and Duilio Marzio. Marzio has such a thick Argentinean accent, you can only understand every couple of words he says. Also on hand is Nicholas Pauls, who plays the ultra-bland love interest to Gina Phillips. The bottom line: this movie is not scary. There is only one good scene and that is the last five to ten minutes of the movie. I would have given this one star, but I gave it three just because I like Faye Dunaway so much. But even she wasn't that great in this.

(2004) Chronicle Of The Raven HORROR

Co-written and directed by Daniel de la Vega and Pablo Parés centers on twin sister, Jennifer Cassi (Gina Philips) inheriting a manor after her twin had currently died. Upon hanging around there, also lives her aunt Emma (Hilda Bernard) who just lies in bed with a paralyzed stance on her face and her suspicious granny, Mary Ellen Cassi (Faye Dunaway). As soon as Jennifer finally decides to sell the manor is when when she begin to receive nighmarish dreams about ravens, making her life rather difficult! Another interesting premised with a twist from an idea thought up by Edgar Allen Poe but with plot holes as the film progresses.