Post by .:FL:. on Aug 15, 2005 16:02:18 GMT -5
Originally posted at TRC, and quickly done while at work. ;D
The drive-in was packed. Luckily, I was the 3rd one in.
Despite having a bad frequency on my radio in hearing this, I thought the film was done rather well.
As Miss Ame pointed out, you think you have it all figured out. In fact, you do. You know who the bad person is, you know from the start. But, is there really ghosts/voodoo to believe in? THAT'S the big question, not who is plotting the insanity to an old man.
This wasn't about shocks and scares. It was a mystery. Think of... Identity (with John Cusack). It wasn't horror (even though both films have been dubbed as such), but as Ame pointed out-- psychological drama... with a twist of phantasy.
In summary for the film itself, in my own words from my vision:
A young hospice caregiver tries hard to not lose any of her patients, in reflection to her guilt she has for not being there when she needed to be with the death of her father.
After losing a patient at the beginning of the film, she looks for another job and finds an ad which pays very good for a caregiver at ones home. She is greeted rudely with the madam of house, who's husband is pretty much a veggie from a stroke he had. A Ewan McGregor look-alike, who is the estate lawyer, tends to nudge the old woman to give the girl a chance. And throughout the film, the lawyer always tends to be the one who has to reason with the young girl and her conflicts with the wife of the disabled man.
The caregiver is given a skeleton key that will open all the locked doors in the house (something to think about: why are all the doors locked? it's never explained), except one door that is hidden within the attic. After managing to getting it open, the caregiver finds that it is a room full of voodoo material and ritual albums. She takes one of those albums.
The old veggie she is caring for seems to be reaching out to the girl. After the wife 'confides' in the girl, she explains why the house has no mirrors and why she thinks her husband is the way he is. The mirrors, she says, reflects old dead servants that were lynched and burned there. These lynched servants, who were done this way because they were caught 'teaching' the two housechildren on how to perform voodoo. In turn because of the horrible deaths, cursed her husband because he was white. When the caregiver tests this out, she uses a compact mirror and shows the veggie it. He freaks. But why? Her reason: power of suggestion set by his wife to believe in voodoo.
And that's where you are set on a roller coaster of the voodoo beliefs and the conspiracy of the wife trying to torture her husband for the hell of it. But, what about the lawyer? Why is he so sympathetic? He even takes the girl to see one of the caregivers that had quit, a young black girl who believed in voodoo and told the girl to quit herself.
Spells, chants, voodoo shops in laudry mats, who's at fault, are lynched ghosts behind this, are the veggie and wife those two children, and what is that album supposed to represent?
The near-end is what you would expect, but the twist at the end will put a smile on the faces of those that enjoy ... uhhh.. can't say. It'll give it away.
Just watch it. Whether d/l or in theatre. I recommend it, even for a HolyWood film.
***SLIGHT SPOILERS---ENDING NOT GIVEN---SLIGHT SPOILERS***
The drive-in was packed. Luckily, I was the 3rd one in.
Despite having a bad frequency on my radio in hearing this, I thought the film was done rather well.
As Miss Ame pointed out, you think you have it all figured out. In fact, you do. You know who the bad person is, you know from the start. But, is there really ghosts/voodoo to believe in? THAT'S the big question, not who is plotting the insanity to an old man.
This wasn't about shocks and scares. It was a mystery. Think of... Identity (with John Cusack). It wasn't horror (even though both films have been dubbed as such), but as Ame pointed out-- psychological drama... with a twist of phantasy.
In summary for the film itself, in my own words from my vision:
A young hospice caregiver tries hard to not lose any of her patients, in reflection to her guilt she has for not being there when she needed to be with the death of her father.
After losing a patient at the beginning of the film, she looks for another job and finds an ad which pays very good for a caregiver at ones home. She is greeted rudely with the madam of house, who's husband is pretty much a veggie from a stroke he had. A Ewan McGregor look-alike, who is the estate lawyer, tends to nudge the old woman to give the girl a chance. And throughout the film, the lawyer always tends to be the one who has to reason with the young girl and her conflicts with the wife of the disabled man.
The caregiver is given a skeleton key that will open all the locked doors in the house (something to think about: why are all the doors locked? it's never explained), except one door that is hidden within the attic. After managing to getting it open, the caregiver finds that it is a room full of voodoo material and ritual albums. She takes one of those albums.
The old veggie she is caring for seems to be reaching out to the girl. After the wife 'confides' in the girl, she explains why the house has no mirrors and why she thinks her husband is the way he is. The mirrors, she says, reflects old dead servants that were lynched and burned there. These lynched servants, who were done this way because they were caught 'teaching' the two housechildren on how to perform voodoo. In turn because of the horrible deaths, cursed her husband because he was white. When the caregiver tests this out, she uses a compact mirror and shows the veggie it. He freaks. But why? Her reason: power of suggestion set by his wife to believe in voodoo.
And that's where you are set on a roller coaster of the voodoo beliefs and the conspiracy of the wife trying to torture her husband for the hell of it. But, what about the lawyer? Why is he so sympathetic? He even takes the girl to see one of the caregivers that had quit, a young black girl who believed in voodoo and told the girl to quit herself.
Spells, chants, voodoo shops in laudry mats, who's at fault, are lynched ghosts behind this, are the veggie and wife those two children, and what is that album supposed to represent?
The near-end is what you would expect, but the twist at the end will put a smile on the faces of those that enjoy ... uhhh.. can't say. It'll give it away.
Just watch it. Whether d/l or in theatre. I recommend it, even for a HolyWood film.
