The Attic Expeditions

Promising in some ways. It looks like it might go somewhere - until the last half hour, which becomes increasingly unpleasant and confusing, climaxing in an arrogant or incompetent refusal to explain and fill in the loose ends. The performances and photography are quite competent. Unfortunately, it all collapses like a schizoid house of cards at the end. When it works, it feels like a combination of Suspiria and Jacob's Ladder.

The above tag line is a tip-of-the-hat nod to a previous IMDB user, and I agree. Seriously, I have never read such a deep divide in viewers over a horror movie! I have to wonder about people who call this movie "boring." What do audiences want from horror films today? There is real fear, dread and (most importantly) disorienting. I must agree that many younger minds with short attention spans will not enjoy this movie, but if you were intrigued by 12 Monkeys, Memento, Eraserhead, and other movies you HAD TO WATCH AND THINK ABOUT, I highly recommend this movie. Don't like loose ends? Tough! Want everything explained? Out of luck! But if you read Phillip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson, you will be pleased with this highly literate movie. I am looking forward to more from the director.

This movie has exactly the right balance between horror and humor and, more importantly, between revealing too much and revealing too little. Some questions are answered at the end, but some are not, and I for one like that some are not. It is not a pat, boil-in-the-bag horror movie. It is intelligent and requires that you pay attention, but it's not as if that's terribly hard to do, because it succeeds in being entertaining throughout. Those expecting pornographic vivisections will be disappointed; compared to movies like "Hellraiser," this film is more rightly classified as "psychological thriller" than horror. It remains an excellent movie, however, and if you don't get it maybe you ought to watch again. Pay a bit more attention next time.

I am honestly not sure what to make of this film. When I came here to read the reviews, it was mainly to find out what the heck had happened, why I was left so confused and frustrated when the credits rolled. This and Mulholland Drive are two of the most confusing movies I have ever seen, and I have the distinct impression that one of two things happened with each movie: either the film was incredibly well-done, well-acted, well-shot, and well-written and just flew over my head because I'm too stupid to understand it, or it was shoddily written and pieced together like a puzzle assembled by a drugged, blindfolded, mitten-clad psycho. I'd like to think that I'm intelligent enough to pick up on clues in a movie, so the fact that both of them left me so puzzled frustrated me beyond belief.

Having read the reviews, I have a better understanding of what Attic Expeditions was about. I'd like to give it a third viewing (yes, I've already watched it twice, to no avail) and see if I can actually follow it. I enjoyed Seth Green's performance, although I can see how he might be chided for copying Brad Pitt's "12 Monkeys" character. I enjoyed the way the movie was shot, I enjoyed the twisted-ness of it. Some of it was awkward and predictable, but only at the last minute. You'd be given a tiny clue about something, then you'd guess what it was and right away you'd be rewarded with the information you just guessed.

I'm sorry if this is obtuse, but I'm trying not to give anything away here. If you're curious to know what I thought upon my third viewing after knowing more of what it was about, feel free to e-mail me. Or maybe I'll leave another review here. Or maybe I'll just take the DVD, toss in onto a burning pile of other movies I hated, and never look back.

Stay tuned.

Horror in the Attic Late night horror movie on the Horror Channel. It made a desperate stab at being a complex psychological horror, but ended up being boring and falling into the same trap as almost all modern horror films. There is no real atmosphere, it felt very phoney and just very typical. The complexity of it seemed just tacked on and was not very complex at all.

I'd read it was a "thinking man's horror film" and in the vein of Lovecraft, but it was far from it. I found it rather simple and pointless. If you really were a "thinking man" then this isn't going to make you think, try "Jacob's Ladder". And for being like "Lovecraft", the man didn't fill his stories with sex and nudity, while this film has two sex scenes and more nudity. Just making vague references doesn't make it like something. If that were the case then here: "God" - now this post is like the Bible.

Slightly above average horror movie, but better than most of today's American tripe.