The Mistress

Zero chemistry boring newlyweds move into their new house even tho they don't seem to know each other or share the same plans for their future at all. Meh...

They discover a picture and a collection of 100-year-old letters from a woman who committed suicide after being abandoned by the old owner of the home...

I now what you're thinking... I've seen this all before! Yes, yes you did. Only this time you can watch it in a below average production. Long story short, the movie is unwatchable. A TOTAL WASTE OF YOUR TIME.

Bad everything> script, acting, pacing. Cinematography and music is awful. The end result is a generic bad movie that is no way bad enough to be unintentionally entertaining or funny.

No spoilers because you already know how will it end. SKIP IT. Save yourself!

I've watched a lot of bad indie horror. Terrible indie horror even. I can tolerate a lot - bad effects, lousy acting, bad dialogue...all forgiveable. Boring, however, is another matter altogether. That brings us to The Mistress, a movie that makes the lamest Lifetime movie seem thrilling and fresh. It would be impossible to include any spoilers in this review as there is virtually nothing to spoil. Even the "big twist" that I'm certain the screenwriter was very proud of is telegraphed for most of the excruciatingly long runtime. I could imagine what sort of horrible torture I would have to be threatened with that could get me to sit through this again.

I was hoping the writer & director was also the lead actor, since that would explain a lot about 'The Mistress'. This movie has levels of bad to it, starting with the premise, which is backwards.

Normally with a haunted house movie, you find out the house is haunted, and then the climax revolves around the history of the ghost, which is usually the key to the protagonist's victory. This movie STARTS with the explanation about the ghost and then elaborates on the life of the ghost while ghost haunting stuff unfolds.

It's anticlimactic, then combine it with a slow pace, sleep-inducing music, poor lighting, monotone line delivery of passionate admissions of love, boring relationships and 2-D characters, you've got yourself 'The Mistress'. I'm guessing the budget was low, so hopefully this film did what it needed to do in terms of providing streaming catalog content and getting some people experience that leads to better opportunities.

The basic story of the movie is really good, couple move into haunted house.....he has had a stalker.....overbearing neighbour.......troubled writer, etc, etc.

John Magaro is excellent as the writer, the interplay between the dreams and real life is good enough and the direction leans heavily on Hitchcock, Giallo and, at times, Kubrick for inspiration.

However the issues come with the execution. The wife of our 'protagonist' is terrible. Absolutely no chemistry with her husband (she may get on well with the furniture as she is that wooden). Several scenes seem to have been created without consideration to the rest of the movie. The wife is angry one minute and cheerful the next, the angry neighbour is angry, errrr.......because? And the pacing is so off it feels like a waltz.....slow, slow, quick quick slow.

There was a more interesting plot with the the blond thot neighbor and the husband, me thinking she would seduce him over the wife only to be subverted for a haunted house plot twist with the wife being the hero; the most boring , bland, annoying, shallow, oblivious, unappealing, useless character in the entire movie. The lace front wig on the best friend was trash. The black women seemed more like trophy wives rather than actual characters. They might have have well been foreign-owned mail order wives from thailand. The plot seemed more consumable following the husband and in figuruing out why hes being stalked or whatever but then the cinematography got more and more confusing as it went on. Also, only white people died or bled which was unbelivable.