The Haunting of Helena

Sophia's (Harriet MacMasters-Green) daughter does not say this but you get the idea. Wanted to get into it but ended up hoping it would not disappoint me too much with the ending.

On the bright side, it is definitely not Hollywood but on the dark side, it has a hackneyed plot with lose strings and mediocre acting. This is a mother and daughter story. I admired the mother's beauty but felt distanced by her acting. The daughter, bless her heart, is not eye catching or endearing. The story kept me guessing and always swayed away from horror formula stuff but felt a bit like a bunch of horror movies tossed into a blender, resulting in a herky jerky plot, full of distractions and leaving you guessing at lose strings. Still the ending I did not expect since I not at all confident I know how it ended, felt it would have been better if it ended at the last scream.

Maybe the acting was the result of bad directing. In any case, I would not recommend it unless you are in the mood for a thriller/mystery/horror with an artsy Italian flavor that is not hung up on making too much sense.

5 for being unconventional but too chopped up.

The first half of the movie, involving the mother and her daughter moving into an old apartment with a spooky past, is good. Creepy and suspenseful. The idea of the tooth fairy, and plot of the story is a good one. The special effects are very good, and the gore is minor, which I actually like. The scene where you finally see the "tooth fairy" is really good, scary and well directed. Then however, the movie takes a turn for the worse. It is slow moving and boring to some degree. The whole storyline within the mental hospital is disconnected to the first half of the story. It loosely ties into the history of the apartment, but kind of goes off the rails from there. It is unpredictable which is refreshing, the ending was not what I expected. The mother is the only person in the movie that you have any real connection with. The daughter is unpleasing, and a bit scary looking to begin with. I think I would recommend this if you like spooky movies that are not run of the mill, and low on gore. Good story, just kind of seemed like to parts that didn't tie in well together.

"Fairytale" was somewhat of a semi-disappointing experience, especially because the synopsis of the movie seemed interesting and the movie's poster was appealing. However, the movie just didn't deliver a well-placed punch that carried any weight. The movie was neither scary nor thrilling, but it did have the occasional moment here and there that was good enough.

The story in "Fairytale" is about a mother living with her daughter, and they have just recently moved into a new home. However something very tragic have taken place in the very same home in the past, and the innocent believes of the daughter in the tooth fairy has awoken the spirit of the past, and the spirit is far from friendly.

Sure, the storyline was good enough, although it didn't really carry anything much to offer the genre. It was basically all something that had been seen before. However, the two things that appealed to me in the movie was the car accident scene, as it was really nicely constructed, and the twist of events with the psychiatric hospital - which leaves you with something to think about.

Effects-wise, then "Fairytale" was fairly tame, as it didn't really made any use of neither CGI nor special effects. It could be discussed whether or not this was a good thing, but personally I would have liked to have seen more usage of today's technology.

And as for the acting, well it was fairly all-round adequate, except for Harriet MacMasters-Green who came off as rather unenthusiastic and lacking motivation in her role.

I read most of the reviews regarding this film, and truly expected it to suck enough that I would have to fast-forward. That is how I view most low budget "horror" films. However, I didn't fast-forward the film once. I am a huge horror fan, and though this one didn't give any real scares, it didn't bore me to tears either. The plot of the story was interesting, and I (like many other viewers) didn't see the end coming until right before it happened. I can't say the ending was great, but it was at least interesting. If you have a little time to spare, and have watched pretty much everything else that has come out recently, then give this one a shot.

Despite the negative reviews, I found this movie watchable. Some may have felt that it was only worthy to be watched as a last resort movie, but this is not true.

Although this movie left some questions unanswered (such as what is the main character's job and why is she teaching in Italy but speaks English to her Italian students? or why are the subtitles so small where you can't really tell what really happened until the truth comes out in the end), it has a few great scares that made me jump and a great twist ending that explains what REALLY happened! If you rent this movie, don't do so out of boredom or as a last resort, do it because you like a great movie. If you liked movies such as They, Boogeyman or Darkness Falls, this is the movie for you.