Empty Rooms

I recently saw the world premiere of this film at the Thriller! Chiller! film festival in Grand Rapids, MI. Although I did not get a chance to see many of the films over the three day weekend, this was definitely the best of the ones I caught, and in fact it went on to win best feature. In fact, I can honestly say it is one of the best of its genre I have seen, on or off the big screen, in a very long time. The film maker has stated in interviews that he was going for the 1970s horror film vibe and particularly those which built up intense emotion without the use of a lot of gore, and that is exactly what he accomplished. Besides being a great story, the quality of the film itself (cinematography, acting, sound, etc.) were great, and if I had seen it in another venue I probably would have thought it was a studio film. I love horror, but not much scares me film-wise, but I was definitely on the edge of my seat for much of this one. I am really looking forward to what's next for the film-maker!

Reading the 5 reviews I had good expectations of watching a well made ghost horror movie. I was very disappointed. I wasn't scared once and was waiting for this mess to end. The 5 other reviewers only reviewed this movie telling me it's individuals who are affiliated with the making of this movie.

Not plot not scares and horrible acting is what wasted 90 mins of my time and this is coming from someone who loves a good ghost story and is always non partial when reviewing a movie. I have learned my lesson. I will do my research instead the reviewers before and not after I watch a movie with unusually great reviews. Thanks for reading.

This is a horror movie that is not scary. It has an awful story line. It has an awful ending. Do not see this movie. See The Amityville horror. See Amityville II. Do not see this movie. It is awful.

"Empty Rooms" is more of a drama than it is a horror movie. I wasn't fully aware of that when I sat down to watch this movie, so it was somewhat of a disappointing experience for me, as I had expected somewhat more scary from the movie.

The movie is about a single mom who moves to a new house with her autistic son. However, the boy is not fond of staying in the house and is drawing a strange, naked man. Soon things start to happen to the mom and the son starts hiding in the basement. It turns out that the house is not empty at all.

Storywise, then the horror in the movie was really tame and rather dull. In this aspect, the movie progressed in a really slow and dull pace, and the events taking place weren't really scary.

However, if you look at the movie from the drama aspect, the story dealing with a single mom's struggle to raise an autistic child by herself, then the story was actually good enough, it had potential, but it was initially worn thin and stampeded by the 'horror' element.

As far as the acting go, then people were really doing good jobs with their given roles and characters, and this is what makes the movie somewhat bearable to sit through.

The synopsis says: 'A single mother and her mute, autistic son are terrorized by supernatural entities in this haunting story of love, loss and the occult.' - if that was to be the case of the movie, then these entities had mightily physical manifestations. And you don't really believe them to be supernatural entities at all.

"Empty Rooms" receives a 4 out of 10 stars rating from me, given the acting and the drama part of the movie. I think the 'horror' element was an anchor weighing down the movie, because it was anything but scary or disturbing.

I really liked the maddie character. There are few jump scares, but I wish they had gone more into the back story of the house to see why it was haunted. It's not the worst movie I've seen but could have been better