Beyond Your Consciousness: The Beginning

This is a low-budget independent film featuring up-and-coming talent. It's a story about Amanda, whose new house may have a dark past. Sound familiar? Perhaps, but the plot remains fresh because nothing is simple or predictable. That's because Amanda is neither simple nor predictable. Slow-build requires patience, but the rising action held my interest, and the ultimate climax was very satisfying. I appreciated that the horror/terror is less tangible, more in the mind. Too many movies show too much, where this allows the viewer to imagine and draw our own conclusions. Smart, well-acted film is worth checking out!

Loved the way the story gripped you in the situation initially, and the character development in the beginning was well developed. Yet it provided a delightfully surprising twist of reality at the end. I thought it was going to be an emotional journey with a women experiences life's trauma, and then have a supernatural theme to spice it up like a lot of thrillers do. It did that nicely, but I was surprised at how it turned out. I didn't see it coming. Impressed with how a new producer and writer can have an idea, pull together a team, and produce such a work within a limited budget. The effects and cinematography were great. A must see independent film.

"Beyond Your Consciousness - The Beginning" is not your typical ghost story, and I appreciate the attempt by Rinoj Varghese.

The film starts with Amanda, a psychiatrist played by Jen Ayer Drake, and her husband George, played by Marcus Lawrence, moving into a beautiful Victorian home with colorful yet slightly eerie stained glass windows, all in an attempt to start a new life. George wants Amanda to move on from her unfortunate miscarriage and thinks the new home would allow her to do that, but unfortunately, she starts to see a ghostly energy and a strange woman who seems to linger outside their home.

Amanda decides to see patients in her home and deals with a really interesting case of a girl who's under the impression she's being terrorized by a ghost at night. When under hypnosis, the girl reveals what I take as foreshadowing and sets the tone for what Amanda is going through. Amanda talks to what she thinks is a spirit living in the house, trying to warn her of a kidnapping, thrusting her into action to save a little girl.

There are some bizarre things and unusual encounters, which I partially like. I enjoy a little weirdness in my films, and one of the characters was perfectly odd. Things are not what they seem, and it's all unraveled in what you think is the conclusion you may have guessed, but guess again. It's not that simple.

I like watching low-budget films because they're rough around the edges and more raw than perfectly polished Hollywood movies that have inflated budgets to play with. I enjoy watching how filmmakers deal with wearing many hats and still find a way to tell a story.

This version corrects grammar issues and improves clarity while retaining the original meaning and details.

Amanda played by Jen Ayer Drake is a psychiatrist who focuses on patients who claim their mental illness is a result of coming into contact with supernatural elements. Recovering from her own personal trauma of losing her child through miscarriage she and her husband move to a new house in a new town in a bid to start over.

When Amanda believes a woman was murdered in her new home it sends her on an odyssey into a claustrophobic world between the living and the dead and the memories that shape them.

Writer and director Rinoj Varghese crafts a subversive and ambitious thriller Its themes which are anything but straight forward. This one will stay with you long after the credits are over.

The film plays like a surreal fevered dream where you empathise with Amanda as she continues to be dragged into unknown territory in her obsessive pursuit of the truth

The constantly shifting narrative rampant paranoia malevolent characters and twists and turns reminded me of Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island" and Ari Asters "Hereditary"

"Beyond Your Consciousness" is a psychological thriller in the mold of 1970's Brian DePalma. Story begins with psychiatrist Amanda, portrayed by Jen Ayer Drake, treating a teenage patient suffering from supernatural trauma. From here story shifts to Amanda's new home, but soon after, mysterious presences reach out to her. Lead actress Jen Ayer Drake does a great job navigating the emotional ups and downs of this character as she seems to descend into madness. There are many supernatural/horror elements that emerge, things that go bump in the night, and ghostly voices/apparitions. Our own sense of reality is challenged. I really enjoyed this movie. It's technically well-made, and worth checking out if you want a good supernatural thriller with a surprise ending.