[The Attic]
Plot:A young girl named Emma is miserable in her new home. She has bad feelings about the place, especially the attic, but her parents are too self involved to take notice and the only one she can talk to is her autistic brother, Frankie. One day while alone in the attic, Emma is attacked by someone that could be her twin and realizes that someone or something is haunting her. As clues begin to build up, her family becomes more and more suspect, and the entity becomes more and more violent.

Cast: John Savage, Catherine Mary Stewart, Tom Malloy.

My Thoughts:Snooze alert.

Review:I really hate films like "The Attic". Movies that offer up a modest amount of potential but instead fail to deliver. The pic follows a girl who has just moved in to her new home with her family, and quickly things begin to take a turn for the worse as she's stalked by her evil twin sister, a sister which she never even knew she had. "The Attic" plays out like part "Alice Sweet Alice", and "Christina's House". The pic really tries to play up the "someone is watching me", and "murders I'm not responsible for" angles, mixing it all with a strong overtone of paranoia. Films like this are a dime a dozen, but atleast they manage to offer up some netertainment value.

"The Attic" however failed to do so. The film is really quite boring, and all of the characters, worst of all the lead girl are very uninteresting and lack depth. It's hard to get into a film where there really isn't anyone in the cast that you're interested in learning more about, or watching deal with certain situations on-screen. Hell, the evil twin sister who only got limited screen-time was the most intriguing character of the entire movie! I would've expected better from Mary Lambert, the woman behind "Pet Sematary".

Even for an indie horror production, a very low budget one..."The Attic" just didn't have that Lambertesque feel beyond it's atmosphere which was an old gothic house. But I digress considering she only directed the film, and Tom Malloy was the one who wrote the script. Maybe he should've let her write it instead. "The Attic" plays out in typical fashion, and there really isn't much here in the line of shocks, or surprises, or anything that's awe inspiring. The movie keeps it's pace and mood very mellow and uninspired. This is the films largest problem.

There really aren't any intense moments in the movie at all. I've never seen a film that goes so by-the-book and doesn't have atleast one intense scene or two. It's really quite sad that Lambert had to direct from such a confined and restrained script. This film was written far too tightly, and as if that weren't bad enough...the movies final act doesn't even step things up. It does however offer up quite a ridiculous ending, which at the same time doubles as a predictable finale to things.

It's pretty much an ending that you wouldn't see coming, but when it does come...you're not surprised considering atleast 10 other horror films have played the same jedi-mindtrick on the viewer, and with far more success than this film could muster. "The Attic" is quite a creepy and twisted tale, but due to it's unbearably restrained script, uninteresting characters, and lack of entertainment value...it far fails to reach it's ultimate potential.

Positives:The creepy gothic house was a decent set piece for the story to unfold at.

Negatives:The script was far too constrained, the performances weren't great, nor were the characters very interesting. The ending was just laughable as well.

Overall:A very poor movie.





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