Lord of Tears

Director Lawrie Brewster's LORD OF TEARS is the story of James Findlay (Eaun Douglas), who has inherited his family estate in the Scottish highlands. Said estate was the source of many childhood nightmares for young James. His late mother even attempts to dissuade him, via a letter left for him, from moving into the place.

Unperturbed, James moves right in... and the new nightmare begins.

First off, let's talk about the house itself, which is one creepy place! The exterior looks like an ancient asylum crossed with a mausoleum. The interior is a labyrinthine collection of tight hallways, countless rooms, and winding staircases. In a word, it's perfect!

Strange occurrences start almost immediately.

Enter Eve (Alexandra "Lexy" Hulme), an American woman who is eager to help James uncover the truth about his past. Ms. Hulme's Eve is a beguiling, playful woman whose every move seems seductive. Her dance and swimming pool entrance scenes are unforgettable! There's something different about Eve. Something mysterious and somehow foreboding. She undergoes a transformation that almost defies description. Ms. Hulme delivers the terror in spades!

Brewster captures a growing sense of dread, perfectly. His film is fittingly surreal without tumbling into absurdity. It's also scary as hell! The house, the grounds, and the surrounding landscape are characters in themselves. This is for those who enjoy the macabre, the gloomy, and the doom-filled.

And we haven't even mentioned the enigmatic Owl Man...

Wow. Just. Holy cow, what a cringefest. I mean, I am pretty tolerant of cheese you guys, but this stinks. It stinks. What a tremendously awful film. Almost everything about it just assaulted my senses. To be fair, the scenery was beautiful and the setting deserved a better movie. But they don't get credit for Scotland being cool.

The writing was awful, the plot boring, the acting - dear god. Who are these people? Why are they in a movie? Who let this happen? These characters are zero-dimensional, and these actors should stop. Just stop now and pursue other career choices.

You know when you are watching a movie and it's so bad you are embarrassed when other people walk in the room? Like you have to have an excuse for why it's so awful? This is that. They are lucky Scotland is eerie, or this 2 would have been a 1.

Based on the 8.2 rating and a string of glowing reviews on different internet sites I decided to order this movie on DVD. The central image of a rather eerie owl-figure fascinated me no end. I was not disappointed by the presentation when I received it, packed in beautiful artwork and including a real feather. A wonderful detail.

Sadly somewhat of this visual flair diminished when watching the actual movie. On the positive side, the visual style/photography are in sync with the esthetic's of the exterior of the packaging, but inside the clockwork some serious glitches are showing, that partly ruin the experience.

Let me first start with the biggest flaw: the acting. Euan Douglas' delivery is often forced and unintentionally funny. This movie is his only credit for now, and I can see why. He simply lacks the complexity that is needed for this role, being both vulnerable and scared and obsessed by his demons. Even worse is Alexandra Hulme's over-acting. I understand that her character needs to be extravagant, but again her delivery is so over the top, I began to doubt the real problem was also in the directing of the actors.

Further disappointments were some of the plot holes and inconsistencies that abound. Especially the psychology of the characters doesn't make sense half of the time. Take the main protagonist. When he first discovers one of his drawings he made as a child of the owl man, a rather innocent, slightly creepy sketch, he pulls off a hysterical face, as if he saw a hideous monster. However, when he later on faces the real thing he keeps a straight face??? The film is full of these illogical stuff, but as I don't want to spoil the plot I won't describe them. Sufficient to say, this movie has all the marks of an inexperienced director.

That said, the movie also has its qualities. The whole idea of the owl man and the visual flair attached to it is quite extraordinary. It feels like there is a constant disconnect between the high profile visuals/photography and the amateur acting/dialog. I constantly felt the urge after each faltered dialog to stop watching, but the visuals kept pulling me in.

Especially sad is that the story behind the failed delivery is actually a nice (thought classic) ghost story. Maybe even that is somewhat of a disappointment, as the whole mysterious imagery of the owl man suggested something even weirder and unsettlingly unspoken, only to find out the actual revelation is more traditional.

In any case, I give this move a modest rating. Specifically for its above average visuals that give it more of an art-house look and not your typical bland-looking horror film. And maybe this is the whole problem of the movie: it clearly is not geared at typical horror movie buffs in search of blood and gore, but rather at an art-house audience. Sadly enough, to please this audience the movie fails to deliver enough dept in the form of subtle layers. And even more crucial, it neglects the essence of each enigmatic mystery: that a mystery even at the end when everything is wrapped up still needs to be...a mystery, in order to weave its spell after the screen has already faded to black.

I never "review" movies, but when horror breaks what I consider to be the #1 cardinal rule of the genre, it makes me almost angry for some reason. That rule, which is an entirely personal one, is that if you're going to take yourself dead seriously with your horror movie, you damn well better have good acting. Your story has to embrace camp in order for bad acting to have any hope of working. The lead actors ability is to me only a few small steps above infomercial quality. There is no feeling to his performance here whatsoever, especially when it calls for dire emotion which it does much too often. The story's execution, although interesting on paper, really doesn't do him or the lead actress any favours. I couldn't in good conscience rate it as low as possible because there are three things, a star for each, that to me must be commended: 1) The location and cinematography that takes place outdoors is fantastic. Beautiful stuff. 2) The lead actress is absolutely gorgeous here, and her performance singlehandedly carried me through to the end, which I could barely believe I made it to. She is embarrassingly cheesy in the third act, which I won't spoil here, but that is entirely the fault of the filmmakers. She did what she could with what she was given. 3) The movie is dedicated to Christopher Lee. This one is self explanatory.

3/10

Lord of Tears promised me something unique and terrifying, but it didn't quite deliver what I had been hoping.

For a movie funded by kickstarter and working with a tiny budget, it's well-made. The artistic direction, photography, and everything visual in this film is wonderful. The score is beautiful and unsettling when it needs to be: very appropriate. The concept of the film had so much potential, potential which was completely bunked because of the performances within the movie.

The lead, Euan Douglas, wasn't absolutely awful, but something seemed to be holding him back, causing his acting and lines to appear stiff and awkward and uncomfortable at best. This could have been a problem with script or direction, but I would be willing to bet that it might have been conflict with the second-in-lead, Alexandra Hulme.

Hulme's performance was atrocious. It takes a lot for me to dislike a character which is not meant to be the target of audience hostility, but Hulme managed to accomplish this. For me personally, her over-acting and forced lines and exaggerated movements really tarnished the otherwise appealing movie. Had the part been taken up by another actress, it might have been an entirely different horror movie, but instead, Hulme has dragged my review down to a 3/10, and beset me with bitterness and buyer's remorse.

A lot of people tend not to expect much with horror movies, but the truth is that it's very much an art, as with any other genre. To really scare someone or cause unrest or discomfort, whatever the horror movie's motive may be, there's a delicate balance that must be maintained through visuals, music, and performances. If just one portion is off, it can ruin the experience entirely.

I wanted to like this movie very much. I'm a huge supporter of independent horror and Hollywood horror alike, but as the extensively positive reviews led me to this film, I needed to address it from my own point of view. I don't know where the 8.2 rating came from.

TL;DR: the marketing was brilliant, the visuals stunning, and the score beautiful, but the performance of Hulme just completely ruined it for me. This was not the horror movie that I was looking for, though it seemed to promise that it was.