Beneath

when I saw the 'MTV Films' logo pop up at the beginning of the movie. This production company are well known for making teen-focused trash like the JACKASS movies, but BENEATH seems to be their sole foray (so far) into horror movie territory. Let's hope they don't make any more attempts in the future!

This is an utterly predictable, completely routine and altogether dull movie. It looks and feels familiar from the outset: a maladjusted but pretty young heroine, who often suffers nightmares and hallucinations, returning to her small town and discovering some dark secrets amongst the townsfolk. Such films have propped up the Hollywood film industry since the 1970s and BENEATH proves to be a familiar and depressingly poor addiction to that genre. Despite the prevalence of plot twists in the narrative, everything that happens is easily guessed and the wannabe-shock ending is worth nothing more than a yawn and raised eyebrow.

In some places the story seems to have been inspired by JANE EYRE but classy this isn't. Instead it's a film filled with clichés, from the good-looking deputy sheriff type character to the wide-eyed heroine stumbling around in the dark. Nora Zehetner (BRICK) makes a game effort as the heroine but she can't do much with the all-too-familiar material. The worst part of the film is the flashy direction, which is so clichéd as to be unbelievable: all sudden jump cuts during the so-called 'scare sequences', flashes of people writhing in beds and the like. The most unpalatable part of the film is the twist ending, which left me with a bad taste in the mouth. It just tops off an altogether uninteresting movie.

Christy (Nora Zehetner) is haunted by her sister Vanessa's death. On her 14th birthday, Vanessa allowed her to drive the convertible. They had an accident and Vanessa got trapped and burnt. During her funeral, Christy was convinced that Vanessa was alive trapped in the closed coffin. In the present day, Christy returns home to attend a funeral. Vanessa's husband John Locke, her niece Amy, and John's strict French mother are still living at home. Christy is having hallucinations and suspects John of malfeasance as Vanessa's doctor but no one believes her. Amy suspects a ghostly presence in the home.

This seems to be a couple of production companies trying their hands at horror. It struggles to be anything new or compelling. It should have been a simple haunted house movie. Christy could stay with the Lockes and forced to stay to save Amy. That's what I assumed it was going for when she has her hallucinations in the house. Then she gets friends, has cops, and flashbacks to the hospital. It's trying to be a shocking story and it does have a great twist. The big Vanessa twist is completely predictable and tiresome as the reveal gets stretched out. The Amy twist is the much better one. This is a weak attempt.

Horror flick: girl returns home after traumatic accident earlier in her life and is she possessed and crazy due to the trauma of that accident or is it those around her who are mad? The girl is either a psycho or the only sane one in the asylum. A feast of weird characters are in this play quite apart from the lead. There is the Bett Davis type housekeeper, the child who sees dead people or something like that; there is the sinister male in the house and lets' not forget the deformed and deceased ugly sister who may still be with us....etc Throw in the illusions being suffered by our main star and add in multi layers of other complications then beneath goes even deeper. I almost turned this off a few times only because it had become too confusing, though ultimately all is mostly explained and there are some decent moments. 5/10

I have to say that I didn't expect much from this film when I rented it today, but I was really surprised by it.

Although the film's story is quite a cliché as is suggested by the back of the DVD case, in my opinion it's done surprisingly good. A pretty conclusive story, except perhaps for the start of it all, not too bad acting and a nice music score form into a decent mystery thriller. I liked how the heroine actually investigates quite a bit throughout the movie instead of just getting the conclusions laid out for her in front of her eyes. Additionally the film doesn't use too many flashy, cheap shock moments and successfully tries to depend more on the mystery itself. And, contrary to the cliché, the heroine doesn't behave exceptionally stupid all the time.

On the downside you won't have many surprises coming in the story if you've seen at least a few mystery thrillers. The ending actually managed to satisfy me, a feat rarely achieved by that genre of movies.

If you like mystery thrillers and always thought that those loud, noisy "in your face" shock moments are overused you should try this movie.

When I saw this was an MTV films production I almost put it back on the shelf immediately - but reading the back of the case made me want to give it a chance. I'm glad I did - in addition to starring a cute actress from the TV show "Heroes" there was an interesting storyline with twists and turns that I didn't see coming. Having come off of a run of small studio/independent/low budget horror movie viewings I appreciated the visual and sound quality. The downside is that it tends to drag a bit (rather odd sounding for a running time less than 90 minutes, I know) and although billed as a horror movie I'd say it was more of a suspense/mystery - not much in the way of scares here but if you're receptive to what I've described I'd say Beneath is a worthwhile viewing.