I never saw the trailer, but I can guess that it gives off the wrong impression. "Walled In" is not a horror movie, at least not like "The Ring" or "Saw" or anything that features murderous ghosts, demented psychopaths and rivers of blood. So if that's what you're looking for, I hope I saved you 100 minutes of your life.
Instead, "Walled In" is basically a slow paced mystery. The story is about a young rookie demolition engineer named "Sam" (Mischa Barton) whose first job is to survey and plan the demolition of a very creepy and cool building where 15 years prior, a bunch of grizzly murders took place and the killer was never found. Although this premise may lead you to expect a Saw like serial killer game of cat-and-mouse, the story took a different approach. This is really about Sam slowly piecing together the puzzle of what happened and trying to solve this cold case.
Is it terrifying? No. It is creepy? Yes. Largely due to the formidable building (which supposedly doesn't exist in real life but had me fooled enough to spend an hour unsuccessfully googling where it was located), the dark, desolate vibe of this film is very powerful. The lighting is very dramatic with extreme dark and shadows, much like the Exorcist III insane asylum scenes, and the color palette is very rusty. I don't remember seeing any greens except in the very beginning. We are immersed in a visually surreal world that expresses decay.
But I stress again that this is not a gory slasher supernatural horror flick, even though the visual style looks that way. I would put it in the same genre as "Dream House" (2011), "Rosewood Lane" (2011) or maybe even "The Sixth Sense" (1999). Like all of these films, the mystery has its fair share of surprises, and I have to say I didn't see the twist coming, but after thinking about it for a while it made perfect sense, and all the characters' bizarre actions were explained. It should be noted that this is an adaptation of a best selling novel, so the book probably goes into more detail. But this still worked for me.
I thought Mischa Barton's acting was excellent, playing an inexperienced heroine without being an idiot. Almost all of the acting and casting seemed to fit perfectly. The only exception was, surprisingly, Cameron Bright, whom I loved in the similarly-vibed mystery romance "Birth". Here he reprises a similar characterization of an emotionless mystery kid, but in "Walled In" I felt like his role could have added more value if he were more explosive. But who knows, maybe the director was making the point that that growing up in a creepy, isolated concrete monolith all his life would lead to a severe lack emotional development.
"Walled In" definitely presents a lot of psychological food for thought, and I haven't even touched on the really cool artistic and historical themes of architecture that play heavily. Definitely not a gut-grabbing slasher flick, but if you've read this far, then I think you should give this flick a whirl. I really enjoyed this movie and wouldn't hesitate to see anything else the director does.
