Family Demons

Living with her alcoholic mother, a bullied teen in a small town finally sees her chance at freedom when an accident puts her mother in a coma allowing her to potentially change her life, but when she believes her mother's spirit has followed her must figure out what's going on to stop it.

This was a solid if somewhat problematic feature. One of the better aspects present here is the strong central buildup that takes a fine commentary on the way alcohol impacts a family relationship. This spends quite a bit of the opening section here providing a detailed account of the trials and tribulations facing a family when they succumb unwillingly to alcohol abuse as the film makes it pointedly clear that the amount of verbal and physical abuse the mother dishes out is due to her alcohol abuse. Chaining her up in her room to prevent her from going out to visit friends or live a life, enduring plenty of charged epithets about how much of an unwanted child she was going up, and putting this behavior squarely at the part of her rampant alcoholism which offers up the kind of pertinent background information on her being haunted throughout the film. Those hauntings might be somewhat controversial since that's where this one does have some controversial aspects. While the scenes themselves serve nicely to get an idea of her mental state, what she's going through, and the degree of harm that her mother's put her through with the hallucinations and visions continuing to haunt her, this doesn't offer up much in the way of intriguing or original content. Way too much of the running time is spent on seeing her run away from the responsibilities she has now that she's free so hardly anything here really has a chance to build up to get to a point where it's hardly ever scary due to her psychological brooding over what's going on with her mother's spirit haunting her. Combined with the obvious low-budget limitations present throughout here, these are what bring this one down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

Had heard this was good but right away I did not like the acting, cinematography or direction. Camera work was really bad. Don't know why some people made it sound so great. The first Australian horror or crime film I have not liked in a long time.

I agree that the message being sent across is very important, BUT I don't think this is a horror movie. In my opinion, it's more of a drama slash suspense film.

Cinematography/Film quality: It's obviously low-budget and will look like it all throughout. Nothing outstanding in this aspect and the location is pretty much the same, but it's acceptable and better than some I've seen before.

Actors: The lead actress is good. She looks really neurotic, though I thought there was too much heavy breathing on her part, that I was actually afraid she'd pass out. The supporting cast was good too, considering it's a movie lacking any financial backing.

Story: I didn't find the story as amazing as what I've read in the first three reviews. Yeah, it is watchable, but nothing original and nothing that would really stand out. It comes across as borderline amateurish, but I still enjoyed the ending, which I thought made watching the movie worth it.

The girl did not look abused, unless they were going for the verbal kind. The chain looks so thin and fragile that I had to suppress my laughter, thinking my dog could break that chain in less than a minute. There were too many loopholes in the story, I guess, but the concept is still quite adequate. ( I have this propensity of not passing up movies involving ghosts. )

There is some blood, no gore or nudity. It's not fast-paced nor thrillingly suspenseful. It would probably make a number of people yawn, but if you're the patient kind, you'll probably survive through this.

This is the perfect example that you don't need a bloated budget to make a creepy film and more importantly one that will remain with you for hours and days afterwards. I have to say the acting in this film was top notch especially with the main two leads. If I had 25 000 dollars right now and I was going to direct a low budget horror film about two young girls that were mentally and physically tortured throughout Cassandra Kane and the lead actress of the Loved Ones are my pics. Ms Kane you were amazing and I felt your pain throughout the entire film. In fact I felt your performance was tantamount to the poor tortured souls of the two leads in my favorite horror film of all time Martyrs and that is saying a lot considering it took two decades for Martyrs to exceed my previous fav film Hellraiser. I can't wait for this director to make another film and when people say they don't make horror like they used to, I laugh and say your right they make them better now.

This entire piece looks, sounds and plays like something done by people with no idea at all what they're doing. Some folks here are mentioning the message. OK. That's why this film gets even my lowest imdb rating of a 3.

It's been over 10 years since this disaster - I truly hope they have moved on and done other things or at the very least, learned something. Anything.

The minimum rating of 3 here is also to acknowledge the effort people put it. Still, just because you spent 10 hours cooking something doesn't mean you have a clue what you're doing.

The result matters as well and in this case, the result is simply terrible on every cinematic measure. So terrible that I don't even know where to begin to dissect it and instead will just suggest people STAY THE F AWAY....