The Mistress

I've watched a lot of bad indie horror. Terrible indie horror even. I can tolerate a lot - bad effects, lousy acting, bad dialogue...all forgiveable. Boring, however, is another matter altogether. That brings us to The Mistress, a movie that makes the lamest Lifetime movie seem thrilling and fresh. It would be impossible to include any spoilers in this review as there is virtually nothing to spoil. Even the "big twist" that I'm certain the screenwriter was very proud of is telegraphed for most of the excruciatingly long runtime. I could imagine what sort of horrible torture I would have to be threatened with that could get me to sit through this again.

No pun intended - this really goes deep diving into quite a few cliches. One of them being the coming and staying in a house that had quite a lot of problems and issues. There is some horror history or rather past to it ... I do wonder if the people going into this should not reconsider. Same goes for anyone who might have it in for me - that's what I am kind of thinking when reviews go awol ... but here we are.

But they act like every other horror family heading to their doom ... or are they? Well you have to watch the movie to find out of course. I thought the movie did a few clever things. You may know where it is heading and maybe can even guess a major twist - but even if you do I feel the movie is strong enough to work on its merits. It is not superb or awesome or whatever ... but it is more than decent ... especially if you are into horror movies. Acting is also quite nice to say the least.

I almost didn't watch this because of the laughably low rating and bad reviews. But I thought I'd try it out, and if it was horrible I'd just turn it off.

I must have watched a different film than others. I found it to be really interesting, engaging, and creepy (even though I suspected the "twist" long before it was revealed). The mood and music were very Hitchockian. The sets and cinematography were very well done. I even appreciated how the title sequence had a kind of 70s/early 80s/vintage vibe to it that matched the warm SoCal setting.

There were a couple of scenes here and there that were a little too dark (like, I couldn't make out what I was looking at), but not enough to make me feel frustrated with the movie overall.

And again, even though I was pretty sure there was going to be a twist of some sort, I was interested in everything that was unfolding.

I found the acting to be quite good, too. I mean, not Oscar-level or anything, but certainly good enough that I wasn't rolling my eyes at any time. Even the characters that seemed a little cheesy reminded me of ACTUAL people I know who are a little cheesy, so they still felt believable. (It was NOT "Lifetime movie" style acting in my opinion!)

I'm not sure I would actually rate it a 9/10 -- maybe more like a 7. A good movie but one that I probably won't go around telling everyone to watch. Still, I'm giving it a 9 in the hopes of boosting its overall rating so people don't just skip over it like I almost did, because I DID think it was worth my time to watch.

Honestly, with all the tripe on streaming these days, this one is a LOT better than most! The VERY final scene, in fact, hinted that there might have been yet another layer I missed on the first watching, so I might give this one another go around and who knows... I may start telling everyone to watch it, lol.

The basic story of the movie is really good, couple move into haunted house.....he has had a stalker.....overbearing neighbour.......troubled writer, etc, etc.

John Magaro is excellent as the writer, the interplay between the dreams and real life is good enough and the direction leans heavily on Hitchcock, Giallo and, at times, Kubrick for inspiration.

However the issues come with the execution. The wife of our 'protagonist' is terrible. Absolutely no chemistry with her husband (she may get on well with the furniture as she is that wooden). Several scenes seem to have been created without consideration to the rest of the movie. The wife is angry one minute and cheerful the next, the angry neighbour is angry, errrr.......because? And the pacing is so off it feels like a waltz.....slow, slow, quick quick slow.

I watched this last night , not really expecting it to be any good , but , I was very surprised by it .

Now, having said that , it certainly was'nt perfect .

The plot was a bit confusing at times , but the ending explained a lot , I like it when a movie gets you thinking one way , as in predicting the ending yourself , and then turns you in a different direction, unexpectedly !

The house itself was so atmospheric , beautiful and classic .

I did get a little hint of Hitchcock here and there , no harm in directors dipping in and out of classic movies, I have no problem with that !

All in all I thought this was a very good thriller , perhaps not horror , but very captivating .