House of Voices (2004) - Ghost Haunted House

House of Voices (2004) - Writer / Director Pascal Laugier is a current hot item for his recent torture porn film Martyrs (2008) which has the reputation to be hard to watch but not because it is poorly made but because the subject matter is relentless and unflinching. We at Soresport movies have the film but have yet to viewed it for just this reason. House of Voices, originally entitled Saint Ange is a slow burn ghost story that ends up, by its' end somewhere other than the viewer thought it would. The opening scene is deceiving in it scary setting and sudden terror. In the large Victorian house that serves as his orphanage home, a young boy Alex gets up to go to the bathroom. It is dark but armed with his flashlight he makes his way through the deserted corridors. Joined by a little girl they make it into the large bathroom and Alex proceeds to turn the knobs of a row of faucets. He mentions something about "the scared children" and how the always touch things in the bathroom. After the two head back to be we hear the water go on in the faucets and Alex heads back to turn them off. Did he see something in the mirror above the larger sink? Climbing up to look he is shocked by something he sees and falls hitting his head and from the screams of the little girl when she comes back we learn he died. It is a well done scene with excellent atmosphere and pacing and a promising start to the film.
Unfortunately the pacing then crawls and the film has a really difficult time creating the tension needed to tell the story. Its 1958 and the death has created a political witch hunt that closes the facility. The head mistress Francard (Catriona MacColl) meets cleaning woman and main character Anna ( the lovely Virginie Ledoyen)at the bus. Catriona MacColl has a storied history in horror movies having appeared in such films as, City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, and House by the Cemetary. Laugier has said in interviews he imagined House of Voice as an unconnected sequel to The Beyond, and certainly the strange other worldly shift the film makes can lend a bit of credence to that idea.
Anna arrives as the children are being loaded up in buses to head off for their new homes. Little Marie comes to Anna and whispers in her ear to be careful of the scared children. She is left at the house with the older cleaning woman Ilinca (Dirina Lazar) and her charge the slightly off her rocker Judith (Lou Doillon). The three have the task of closing down and cleaning the giant building. All is not what it seems as noises and constant stormy nights create a creepy atmosphere for young Anna. She soon discovers Judith and slowly learns that she is not quite all together in the head. Still the work and the weather and the large empty house make for a setting. Anna's strange dreams and sickness gets the viewer wondering but this is quickly dispelled. Anna is revealed to be sick because she is a young pregnant woman who is wrapping her midsection in bandages to hide her condition. That is not all though, she has scars on her back from being lashed. It is a revelation that explains some but opens up just as many questions. The time period sort of makes sense to hide and unwanted pregnancy. She has also shown a desire to hurt the child by punching her own stomach. Could the social ostracizing made her hate the fact she is pregnant? It is 1958 after all and many a young girl with child was sent to the country until their term was complete. Could the lashes on her back be from her family when they found out?
As the haunting come on with sounds of kids playing, moving items and the such, the film starts to drag a bit so we can find out Judith was one of the kids who came towards the end of World War II. Some of those kids did not survive and could be the scared kids that the Ilinca mentioned to Anna. Anna wants to know and starts a somewhat sinister plan of her own to coop Judith to get information. Ilinca has been controlling the young women with medication but Anna gets Judith to stop taking the pills. It works and after a time, too long for most viewers Anna knows a dark secret about the orphanage and why it is haunted.
She acts to go look at the secret area behind the mirror that Alex fell from in front of in the opening scene. She pushes through and starts to explore taking a dumbwaiter down to what appears to be a secret underground laboratory or hospital. This is when director Laugier goes from practical haunting story to psychological nightmare. Poor Anna is in the midst of a nervous breakdown and although the astute film viewer will recognize it the average person may be scratching their heads wondering how the film can shift in tone so drastically. The sad ending does not help this movie either and so at the end it is not very satisfying. The music and visuals are very effective in this film but the left turn can not be made up for. So in the end I can not really recommend this film.
Rating (4.7) 5.0 and up are recommended. Too slow to go! Skip It!

Orphan (2009) - Horror

Orphan (2009) - The film starts with a startling birthing scene where we learn that Kate (Vera Famiga) has recently lost a baby and that she is struggling emotional, soothing her nightmares with pills while trying to avoid booze.We get a bit of slow back story that fills in the characters, Kate and John have two children, Danny (Jimmy Bennett) and the deaf Max (Aryana Engineer). John(Peter Sarsgaard) and Kate are saddened with the loss of their child and plan on adopting an older child to fill out the family. Although the screenwriter (David Johnson) took time to map this out with the appropriate scenes it still was not very compelling to what the great need was. The couple had two really beautiful children, a dream house and nice cars. They seemed to still have interest in each other and lives that were a bit disfunctional but not unsuccessful. In fact I have to say there was nothing really wasted in this script, each little noticeable detail served a purpose later in the film. The problem was that every detail was written to be noticed.

The couple visits Sister Abigail's (CCH Pounder, a favorite of mine from Warehouse 13) children shopping center... I mean orphanage, and meet the main antagonist Ester (Isabelle Fuhrman). She is doing art and sing in a room off by herself and seems very skilled at painting. "I've had lots of time to practice." she says when complimented. This piece of foreshadowing brought to you by obvious. Sister Abby also mentions to them about the ribbons on her wrists and neck, so at that point one could assume she has some kind of scars. Quickly we get to the day when Ester is part of the family, then the false scares and scary stares begin from the new little girl with the strange accent.

Ester works fast from sweet and interested in Kate and John to creating the perfect triangle and seriously messing with the adults relationship. There is the usual sibling jealousy from the son which Ester takes care of by bullying him. She also befriends little Max and then things start to go horribly wrong. Information about the girl starts coming to light about her behavior. Sister Abigail improbably did not know story of her cruelty prior to the adoption but now that dad loves Ester while Mom does not the good sister tries to warn them. Ester deals with her in the way any good psycho would.

More and more things lead Kate to want to get rid of the girl, but she is just so darn good at splitting her and John that nothing really happens even though the audience see more and more cruel and dangerous behavior from Ester. When she attempts to kill Danny by burning him in the tree house we start to see the movie build to the climax. Kate seems to go nuts enough to be medicated for attacking Ester. John takes her and Max home and then drinks until intoxicated. Ester is succeeding in her plan to have John for herself. She tries to seduce him while in the cut scenes we get the whole Ester story spoon fed to us by a guy talking to Kate on her cell phone. How convenient and just at the right time.

So the climax comes when Kate is rushing home, John has rejected Ester as a nine year old lover and she flips out and wants to Kill Kill Kill. The all to perfect ending has a fun double climax but we really have known all along how this on was going to end. Everything , the shot and the dialog is used in the movie so it is easy to see the twist coming if you are paying attention. This is the biggest flaw in what is a pretty entertaining film though. The feeding of the important plot knowledge is just too obvious even if the twist is cool. It would have been a lot more interesting and disturbing if the father did not out of hand reject Ester. That would have made for some really uncomfortable audience feelings. Politically though it probably would have kept the movie from release so I guess it could not have been. That fact that the actress playing Isabelle was 12 at shooting time would have meant some tricky shooting also to keep her innocence intact. Still in the end it was a pretty standard and entertaining film certainly worth seeing.

Rating (6.5) All ratings above a 5 are recommended viewing