Altar

Nick Willing best known for his epic TV Mini-Series like Nederland and Tin Man, takes us on a different journey out on the mores. Just when you thought the days of atmospheric storytelling had given way to shaky cameras and CGI comes this chilling tale it grabs you draws you in gently with strange often inexplicable behavior from Mathew Moline. Eerie noises fill the quiet architecture and landscape. Olivia Williams delivers a strong performance as the wife and mother and its through her you find yourself saying don't open that door, don't walk in the dark, you will find some genuine scares. Reminiscent of classics like The Haunting, Ghost Story and more recently the Woman in Black. Crappy, atmospheric, chilling, well paced, directed with finesse and style, captivating yet chilling camera angles Mr. Willing has won many Emmy's for his writing and directing here he shows the ability to create engaging mature Gothic horror for adults. I gave it a 7.

I sat down to watch the 2014 movie here in 2019 solely because it was a horror movie and because I hadn't seen it before. I can't claim to have ever heard about the movie, nor did I know who starred in it prior to finding it by sheer random chance.

The storyline in "Altar" was fairly adequately. It was, however, suffering from being sort of generic and also from having way too little happening throughout the course of the entire movie. This made the movie feel rather prolonged and tedious, to be honest. And I must admit that my interest in the movie dwindled as the story trotted on and on with director and writer Nick Willing at the helm.

For a horror mystery "Altar" was lacking horror elements, so the mystery labeling of the genre would be more accurate. There simply was nothing scary anywhere in the movie, despite the fact that director Nick Willing was eagerly trying with some jump scares and stereotypical scenes to spook the audience. The only problem with this was, that it simply didn't work.

The atmosphere in the movie was adequate, and definitely had potential to add a lot of flavor to the movie. But this wasn't really properly utilized, and it just sort of fizzled without any greater effect.

As for the acting in the movie, well Olivia Williams and Matthew Modine definitely carried the movie quite well.

All in all, then "Altar" was a less than mediocre movie in terms of entertainment value and enjoyment. It was watchable, for sure. But it was hardly a particularly memorable or outstanding movie. For me, this 2014 movie will fade into oblivion without leaving a lasting impression on me. There are far better horror movies readily available if you enjoy a proper horror movie.

No, this is not great filmmaking.

(Must be a lot of cast and crew having rated this on here.)

Just going to ramble about this in no special order.

Some places it seems like they have used, I don't know, Adobe Premiere effects, or worse yet, effects that are in the camera itself.. Thats a little wtf, right?

As far as I can remember, one or two short scenes are almost creepy, actually. But they are way outweighed by what is wrong, and bad, and not creepy.

Olivia Williams is annoying as crap! She has the worst looking hair, and it is even a point in the movie! I got mad just looking at her stupid hair. That's not good.

There is nothing new here, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but what is here, is not done very good, and that's a bad thing.

The plot with the wife and the husband and the story of the house and the this and the that, could have been cool, but it is just not good enough.

One scene with a sculpture and some smashing is kind of cool. Best part of the movie.

Atmospheric haunted house horror about a designer who moves her husband and kids into a spooky Yorkshire manor she has been hired to restore. Beautifully shot on location, director/screenwriter Nick Willing makes the most of the subdued, wild beauty of the Yorkshire moors. I wish we had a better sense of the gorgeous house the family takes over -- for all the reliance on secret rooms and bricked up passageways, the internal layout of the house remains vague and generic. Also less defined than they should be are the couple's two children, who we don't get to know very well. This makes the peril they are in less compelling than it could be. Olivia Williams does a great job as the emotional center of the film, trying to hold her family together in the face of mounting financial pressures and a menacing presence that seems to grow more powerful. Like many such stories, the supernatural here is an expression of the resentments and strains that have crept into William's marriage to her failed artist husband, played by a miscast Matthew Modine. While it doesn't break any new ground, "Altar" builds and mostly maintains a high creepiness factor, especially when Modine discovers a new medium and new canvas for his art. This is a good, old-fashioned, restrained horror film, well worth checking out.

This is a bad movie. When I knew the cast, I thought it had to be good. Experienced actors with a great curriculum of good movies. Well, it started out very bad and it gets worse till the end. A lot of clichés. The same and old ones that everybody saw in thousand of other horror type movies. Bad acting, which surprised me. It seemed that Mathew was not there at all....he was around the movie scene and stopped a while to make some filming. Didn't feel him at all. The plot, it's old and the same one, ever and ever again. The effects are bad and didn't scare one bit. Not even the slamming doors, or the sounds...nothing is capable of scare in this picture. My question is: why someone bothers to do a movie like thousands of other? and why did the actors accept being part of this? I really don't understand. There are a lot of stupid scenes also. It's really not good enough to spend time watching.