ECHO

This was a bit slow at times, but it delivered a fair amount of entertainment, while making a statement about our society.

~This review will appear in the June 2010 issue of Twisted Dreams Magazine~Have you ever seen someone in need and offered to help? Or are you one of those people who passes people by and thinks, someone else will do it - don't get involved?What if your lack of involvement caused devastating circumstances to the victim? What if because of your refusal to help, they sought vengeance against you?Meet Bobby. Newly out of jail (and I later found out that it was not his fault and was reminded of how badly the American "justice" system sucks. But you'll have to watch to find out why he was jailed!) and just wanting to start over again. He tries to pick up the pieces of what was once his life and moves into his deceased mother's apartment.And that's when the trouble starts.It begins with noises, odd and troubling sounds that wake him up and then the visions of his dead mother begin to play havoc with his mind and he is slowly sucked into a never-ending nightmare.His neighbor, Gina (Calzado) is an abused wife whose husband, Walter (played with far too chilling realism by Durand) likes to come home and smack around on both her and their daughter, Carly.Bobby may have been in prison, but he still won't stand for his neighbor - cop or not - to beat on his wife and kid and tries to help...but things just start getting stranger.The visions begin to happen more and more frequently and it's not just Bobby who finds himself thrust into the middle of something he doesn't understand. The visions also begin to manifest themselves to Alyssa (Warner) and to other tenants of the building.However...the more Bobby tries to help, the more dangerous Walter becomes with devastating consequences to Gina and Carly.But things are not as they seem and as Bobby slowly loses his sanity (or so he feels) he finds out the real reason why he's being tormented and what he has to do to stop it.This is a great Noir movie, simply seething with dark tension and chills. I sat on my couch, anxiously anticipating each scene and was so involved that my husband looked at me and said, "Holding hands with yourself, dear?"I looked down and my hands were clamped so tightly together I was cutting off circulation.Dark, tragic and with a stellar performance by Kevin Durand as the wife-beating cop that will leave you hating him, but feeling solemn compassion for him as well, culminate to a head in the explosive ending and you'll never quite look at cops...or apartment buildings the same, ever again.

I would say that this belongs in the "horror-extremely lite" genre, though it's more in the range of a ghost tale than towards the slasher range of the spectrum. As I'm more inclined to watch ghost stories, finding psychological motivation (sadness, betrayal, untimely death, etc.) behind paranormal activity more stimulating to view in a film than just a series of shocking visuals thrown together, I don't mind that. If you don't want a movie filled with foul language (it doesn't matter to me one way or the other, but it does to some people, so that's why I bring it up), this could be the film for you. There's no nudity in it. By today's standards, the shock value of what few graphic scenes that there are is very minimal. I can't say that I jumped or was even surprised once while viewing this, let alone did it scare me or even stay w/ me for a bit afterwards. It isn't a movie that's likely to make you keeping lingering over the details when you're done watching it.I found myself viewing the film from an actor's standpoint, at least in terms of the protagonist's character. I thought he could've been a little bit more "animated" in places, and in the beginning, he was just downright boring- but, overall, this wasn't a horrifically-acted film. Carlos Leon, while no Olivier, was certainly passable in playing the main characters' boss, and was a sympathetic guy here. Leon has a surprising "presence" to him, which is about the only thing that stood out to me in the movie. The girl who played the main character's on-again, off-again girlfriend, while attractive enough, wasn't anyone who'll sets the world on fire. Again, she gave a passable performance, but not memorable. Character development was quite one-dimensional here, so I don't necessarily fault the actors- but better actors could've perhaps bumped this from a two-star movie to a three-star film.I did think that the movie (unsurprisingly, considering who made it) was very similar in setting to "Dark Water", though was less effective in the creepiness department. I didn't find "Dark Water" scary, either, but at least it was slightly better at character development & plot than this was- not great, but better. Hoepfully, that'll give you a point of reference (if you've seen Dark Water, that is!) If you're expecting something as good as "The Grudge" or "The Ring"- look elsewhere! This is a low-budget flick, and could pass for a made-for-television one (which maybe it was & I just don't know it). It's not the worst film I've ever seen, and I've most definitely seen worse acting & plots in my life. The main character was easy enough to empathize with after a bit. The plot was fairly predictable, and the "motivations" on the part of the main ghoulies were definitely stretched beyond anything reasonable, raised more questions than answers & it all was laced w/ inconsistency. But if you just want to look at a flick, to get you through a boring evening, you could do worse than this.

The film was in subtitles. I want to watch the film not read a book.

Horrifying. Really good film. Jumpy when you dont expect it. Good little sneaky background glimpses of creepy goings on. Definitely had me gripped! Really recommend, great as well for the price!!

Scary film would recommend

Very slow going for the most part and with a really weak storyline, I was expecting so much better from the producers of The Ring, but this seriously lacked depth, too far too long to get going, and wasn't particularly scary.

Great film but unfortunately no subtitles as I'm deaf so had to have the sound up on high