Séance

(2006) Séance HORROR

Written and directed by Mark L. Smith directing a straight to rental but interesting idea about blond teenage girl, Lauren (Kandis Erickson) who decides not to visit her folks for the long holidays, decides to seance (waking up ghosts) with her friends in the student dorm instead, for the purpose of getting rid of a repeated dream of a little girl whose always haunting this particular person, we don't know how or why this little girl is haunting her. Upon the seance, also brought to life in ghost form, the person who killed the little girl, who eventually set out to kill remaining people still hanging around in the building! There's some interesting stuff said about myths about ghosts, but with higher production values this film could've been decent.

I picked this up because Adrian Paul (The Highlander) was in it, and I'm glad I did. I thought the movie was scary and fun. I love horror films, but they often disappoint me because they go for gore instead of suspense and tension. But this one has a spookiness that builds right from the opening ( I hate creepy little girls) and as soon as they have that first séance it really gets scary, with Adrian and that little girl wandering around the halls. But if you're looking for loads of blood this isn't the movie for you. The characters were all fun and seemed like real students instead of 30 year-olds trying to act like teens. The acting was much, much better than most lower-budget films, especially the Diego guy. The special effects weren't the best, but it's the kind of movie where that doesn't matter so much. Just turn down the lights and enjoy the scares. Overall I give it a 7/10

This was one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Aside from the technicality of the use of the word Seance to give a "point" to the movie, the rest of it was utter bull. From the way the actors "acted" to the more than lack luster (or is it less than lack lu.. nevermind) stage design, this movie had awful written all over it. A review? This movie isn't even worthy of such. This is more of a warning than anything else. You may enjoy this if you like cheap laughs and a few jumps (and that's only if you have a weak heart), but aside from that this really isn't worth it.

The only reason I gave 2/10 is that I wanted to be "nice".

In the Thanksgiving, five college students stay in their dormitory in the old Chelsea building alone with the security guard Syd (Jack Hunter) that locks the building for security reason. When Lauren (Kandis Erickson) tells to her roommates Melina (Tori White) and Alison (Chauntal Lewis) that their bathroom is haunted by the ghost of a little girl, they do not trust on her words. Lauren meets her neighbor of the same floor Grant (Joel Geist) and he tells that the girl was the Italian immigrant Cara Furia (Bridget Shergalis) that died when she felt down in the elevator shaft. He tells that another tragedy happened in the building with the janitor Jesse Spence (Adrian Paul). When Lauren tells the story to her friends, Alison's boyfriend Diego (A.J. Lamas) decides to hold a séance and summon the spirit of Cara Furia. However, they bring of the evil Spencer instead, and their night of fun becomes a nightmare.

"Séance" is a reasonable ghost story, with a creepy story that is not so bad. However, most of the characters are stupid and has the most imbecile and unreasonable attitude – specially considering that they are college students. But the movie entertains and I startled a couple of times. In the end, the policeman says to Lauren that so far they had found three bodies. Wait for the credits, because they find the fourth body with a surprise. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Quarto do Medo" ("Room of Fear")

Staying in their dorm over a weekend break, a group of students find that a ghostly girl haunting the area is only the start of their troubles when they inadvertently release a ghostly killer into the building.

This was quite an enjoyable if somewhat flawed effort that gets held down somewhat. One of the biggest issues with this one is the fact that there's never any real indication given that the killer is all that scary, as he's quite lame-looking and never does anything that can really be called creepy. The only remotely chilling option here is the flickering ability generated when he appears and disappears, yet none of those scenes are competently pulled off to make the scenes worthwhile, and when the killer here is completely non-scary it doesn't bode well for the film as a whole since the central figure required to generate the scares in your chilling film doesn't meet those standards. That also ties in with the film being so slow-paced and generally unwilling to really showcase the killer which leaves this one to spend a large portion of time not really doing much of anything. We get a particularly long period of time between the titular event and the first appearance of the killer to them, which makes this one feel like an eternity before it gets good. The good stuff does come here in the final half when the gang finally learns the truth about what they're up against and how to finally stop it which soon devolves into a series of chases, confrontations and body-hopping which is all sorts of fun as the action is pretty enjoyable and the kills are pretty bloody. The other effort that really helps this one out is the rather clever ideology this one has regarding the paranormal nature of what goes on here. The central idea to use a séance to contact the individual around them is all quite fine, but then to go around and introduce the idea of using the Quija board and how erroneous their thinking was in using it is the best since they eventually learn how wrong they were and how it impacts the resulting massacre throughout here. That's one of the best qualities here and really helps this one out from it's flaws.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Brief Nudity, drug use and themes of child abuse.