From Within (2008) - Horror

From Within (2008) - Part of the Horror After Dark series this small movie was captures enough creepiness to hold the audience. A curse on a small town where the residents start seeing scary versions of themselves. The alter people make the real people commit suicide. Lindsay (Elizabeth Rice) sees her friends die and then her boyfriend Dylan (Kelly Blatz) blame the local wiccan family. She defends Aidan (Thomas Dekker) and seeks his help when the curse reaches her. There are some plot points to spoil so let it be said that the curse is a tough one to break. Dylan the son of the local minister shows the painful ignorance of a true believer and just how corrupting religion can be. As the body count grows his all to strong faith has him scapegoating the only family that is different. The image of small town America in this film is one of fearful intolerance for anything except majority rule. The blame comes fast and hard to the family who is not in the local church. The film does a great job of turning Dylan into the antagonist even though by the end he was not so off in his thinking about where the evil was coming from. The dark ending was a refreshing change from the norm. Writer Brad Keene who wrote another favorite The Gravedancers has captured the scarey isolation of small town life. Definately creepy in content and context this film although not perfect was good for a small town scare.
Rating (6.3) Ratings above 5.0 are recommended movies.