[Walled In]
Plot:A demolition company rep (Barton) who supervises the razing of a mysterious building, discovers horrifying secrets and past inhabitants entombed within its walls by a vicious murderer.

Cast:Mischa Barton, Deborah Kara Unger, Cameron Bright.

My Thoughts:The writer of "Walled In" must've been..."Stoned"...*rimshot*.

Review:"Walled In" is actress Mischa Barton's first horror project and most likely it'll be her last. The movie has Barton playing a demolition engineer. Her job description? Basically to scour buildings that are lined up for her father's demolition company to blow up. Scour them for weak spots and weak points where the demolition experts can place explosives to get the job done. The point of her work is to find enough weak spots within the buildings foundation, where very little explosives are needed to blow it, because placing a few sticks of dynamite at the buildings weakest points...would be enough to topple it. As opposed to filling the place full of TNT.

This particular job is a big one for her, because now that she's just graduated college...her father has offered her a partnership in the family demolition business. And she needs this job to go smoothly to prove to him she can hande the responsibility of being a partner in the company. But this particular building, which is scheduled for demolition...is no ordinary building. It's an architectual work of art, if you will. Built by a master architect who went crazy, murdered a bunch of the tenants within his own building, and then emtombed them within the walls of it.

Upon arriving, Barton's character is unaware of the buildings history, but with the help of the son (Cameron Bright) of one of the buildings four remaining residents...she slowly uncovers it's dark secrets. But can she get her work done fast enough so she can leave the building before it's secrets wind up emtombing her also? For a movie with a pretty decent cast, "Walled In" in the end is just a waste of time. The movie starts off very well, and when the gothic looking building is introduced into the story...you get the feeling that the movie is gonna go in a very chilling and scary direction.

But instead, it just drags on this dark mystery until it gets to the final act where it delivers a very embarassing and flat out stupid twist. Granted I found myself enjoying the hell out of this movie before the final act twist. And that one twist just destroys all which came before it. Mischa Barton (The O.C.), and Cameron Bright (Ultraviolet), are joined by Deborah Kara Unger (Silent Hill) as the films top three lead actors. While the trio form a very diverse cast, their talents are wasted because the story doesn't go in the right direction during it's conclusion.

The character interaction really drives the movie during it's majority. Barton's character is slowly introduced into the twisted backstory of the building and it's creator by Bright's character. Who you get the feeling may be possessed by the spirit of the evil architect, or somehow under his influence. Bright's characters mother, played by Kara Unger, is a strange bird herself. And kind of mimic's her character of Dahlia from "Silent Hill", just without the bad hair and makeup job. Meanwhile the buildings other residents are a strange but sweet old lady, and a crazy black guy who has one of the movies best and more laugh-enducing moments which involves an axe.

This keeps the movie interesting because you wonder why, with the buildings history...are these four people in particular still living there? And as the movie moves along, their reasons for staying behind, after everyone else who wasn't murdered by the buildings designer left...are slowly revealed. The writer manages to create a great element of suspense and mystery using these characters as red herrings to what is drummed up to be the movies ghostly villain. And the writer manages to do it without alot of blood, gore, and guts.

This isn't the movie for you if you're looking fora bloodbath. And while a movie where human corpses are emtombed within a gothic, creepy building should be graphically violent, honestly more cement flows in this movie than blood. But the writers flaw is that his plot diea can be ascribed to "Fatal Attraction", "The Toolbox Murders" (Remake), and "A Nightmare On Elm Street". And usually when a person gently swipes elements of these three movies to incorporate into his own, if he's a good writer...despite the blatant ripping off, the film would atleast deliver somewhat.

But "Walled In" doesn't just shoot itself in the foot with it's twist finale, it blows the entire foot off from it's own leg! I've seen films with twist endings which were stupid, nonsensical, and or just plain unbelievable, but I've never watched a horror film which commits complete suicide with it's own twist ending. Seriously, after everything that came before the final act being very satisfactory, it was such a shame that the big reveal had to be such a poison pill to the overall film. But it was, and so it it what it is.

But atleast Mischa Barton gave a good performance, and I have to admit...I wasn't expecting her to be as good as she was but she was pretty good. So in the end, this becomes one of "Walled In"s silver linings. Too bad the films writer doesn't know who to put a proper twist on his own movie, without killing it though.

Positives:Acts 1, 2, and early portions of act three are very good. The acting is good, especially by Barton. The house is a nicely eerie and creepy setting. The funny hallway scene with the black tenant.

Negatives:The later portions of act three, and the big twist which just kills the whole film literally.

Overall:One and a half out of four stars.





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