The Appearing

Despite the intriguing title, THE APPEARING is nothing more than a cheap and lousy horror movie that screams derivative at every step. It starts out as a tragedy-from-the-past type movie, and before the end has turned into your usual demonic possession flick. At no point is it original or indeed valid as a decent horror film.

The characters are dull beyond with Will Wallace's lead being particularly stultifying. Former Superman actor Dean Cain shows up in support, while poor old Don Swayze - the late Patrick's brother - reminds us that he's nothing like his more famous sibling. Despite attempts by the filmmakers, the incidents portrayed in the film are rather tame, and the familiarity of the whole thing makes it tough to keep your attention on it.

I know it's not entirely fair to review a movie without watching it all the way through, but in the case of "The Appearing", watching it all the way through just wasn't an option: it was either switch this execrable garbage off or be forced to fall asleep in front of it; either way, it wasn't going to appear for more than 30mins. before this writer's eyes.

Being low budget and amateurish aren't necessarily the death knell of this kind of film. I have seen plenty over the years that are both, yet strive to bring something unique, creative, or reflect a deep love for the genre. At the core of it, "The Appearing's" biggest problem is that it doesn't display any of these qualities. The storyline is as humdrum as can be; the most basic horror tropes are on display: teenagers partying in the woods, local legends, new cop in town, troubled wife struggling to get over the loss of a child...and I'm sure the rest of the film would have kept trotting them out.

The most glaring flaws have mostly been mentioned in other reviews. For me, the casting was the biggest issue. The alleged teenagers--Susie in particular--look 30 years old, while the cop's wife looks incongruously much younger than him, to the point of looking like a dorky teen in that ill-suited (and ill-fitting?) summer frock they have her traipsing around in. I suppose wardrobe was provided by the actors and the director had to go with whatever they showed up in. Actually, Susie looks older than 30. She kinda looks like Jerri Blank in "Strangers with Candy". She doesn't actually look like her, just as out-of-place-old as her. That's a very cruel thing to say about the actress, but a look at her IMDb bio and photos does show a desperate attempt to hide her real age.

The script possesses many stupidities. One that stood out was the sheriff, upon greeting the new cop, saying that the town didn't even appear on several maps. Now, this was done to highlight its remoteness, its hick-ness. Yet it has a high school? How many backwoods ghost towns/lost to memory townships with tumbleweeds blowing through Main Street while a swinging bench claps against faded wooden boards with one road out that no one ever visits since the highway went in in '55...and therefore doesn't appear on official maps!...how many of these places have a staffed, operating, high school? That's right, a high school tends to get a place noticed; enough to warrant a dot and name on a map.

The best thing about the movie--and I really am being entirely serious here--is the stock footage of foliage that interlaces many of the editorial scene cuts. They are overdone and sometimes out of place, but they were quite attractive. That's why I assume they were stock footage of some sort; or footage acquired from elsewhere, at the very least (the director's college project, for example). Oh, if I'm being generous, the music wasn't too bad; in some scenes, such as 'teenager in summer frock' wife making (her first? it kinda looks like it) breakfast for straight-out-the-door cop husband (another cliché. What does she expect? She married a cop! He just said there was a missing person's case! What's with the "...but I made it for you special!"?)...the music while that gem was being played out was quite well done.

OK. Enough. For only 30mins of watching, I've been rambling enough.

Here's my summary: This is a very poor film which doesn't warrant a viewing even for supporting-up-and-coming/fan-of-B grade etc. reasons. It has few redeeming features and utterly lacks uniqueness or a creative addition to the genre. Plus, a bunch of middle-aged people running around playing teenagers while the director's little niece plays "a adult wife wiv a husben and everything!" is just too silly to watch. Don't let "The Appearing" appear anywhere on your movie viewing schedule.

Your usual overused plot/bad acting/weak effects, second hand movie. Maybe the plot was smarter than normal, but those bad picked actors, horrible lines and the lookalike "The rite" ending managed to destroy it completely.

So here you have it, one hour and 30 minutes that felt like a small infinity because they threw more twist than you find in an Asian horror, they just wouldn't stop. Indeed maybe the creators of "The appearing" wanted to make something to stand above the rest of B horrors, but failed to. They got so lost in their own work, something I see happening more and more lately. The problem lays either in that extremely cheap camera work or a plot pulled out to its extremes!

So, either try "The exorcist", "The rite" or "The possession" just, sadly, not this one. Won't work even for a late night movie. It's bad...

Cheers!!

While there are far better and worse possession movies out there, then "The Appearing" really didn't bring anything new to the genre, nor did it manage to differentiate itself from many other movies in the genre.

The storyline was easy to follow, perhaps a bit too simple at times, but it was weighed down by the fact that the movie never really got up into gear and left its mediocre pace in its wake.

The acting in the movie was wooden at best, and there weren't really any particular performances that stood out in any way. There was an shadow cast over the entire movie, from what appeared to be a fact that people weren't really putting their souls and wholeheartedly efforts into this movie.

The effects were actually adequate, as were the storyline of the movie. Well, don't go and expect multi-million dollar effects here though, but the effects were used to good extend and did their jobs well enough.

If it was deliberate that there were absolutely no chemistry between Rachel (played by Emily Brooks) and Michael (played by Will Wallace), then director Daric Gates did a good job, because there were absolutely no on-screen chemistry between these two at all. It does put a notion into the mind though; was it because the characters were growing apart and becoming estranged because of the death of their daughter, or if it was because of the lack of talent of the actors, well...

For a horror / thriller movie, then "The Appearing" was frightfully devoid of anything even remotely scary or shocking.

One of the worst movies I have ever had displeasure to watch. The plot must have been written by someone under influence. Acting was anything but convincing. Characters were 1-dimensional. Even music sucked. Not worth watching at all. At first, I thought it was a parody perhaps but it wasn't. It was just "work" of a bunch of people who obviously had no idea what they were doing and decided one fine day to make this very poor excuse for a horror movie. What the whole movie reminded me the most of are the worst of the SyFy channel productions. Although those movies tend to have better costumes, decorations and special effects than this one. So... do not watch this at home or anywhere else. It's definitely not worth your time. You can recommend it to someone you really don't like, though.