The Haunting of Helena

Don't you just hate it when a film doesn't live up to even a minor 10% of its own great potential? "Fairytale" easily could have been an old-fashioned sinister and atmospheric fable, but due to a variety of reasons (most of them relating to lack of talent) it turned out to be yet another sore disappointment. The film premiered at the annual Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films, and what mainly lured to me to theater was the plot synopsis mentioning the tooth fairy. Personally, I think there's great macabre potential in this theme, but so far this hasn't resulted in any good or even half-decent movies. There's an adequate episode of "Supernatural" devoted to the theme, but the only long-feature horror movie I recall is the mediocre "Darkness Falls". Like that one, "Fairytale" starts off promising but doesn't manage to retain the viewer's attention through lousy character development and inept usage of the splendid set pieces and filming locations. Harriet MacMasters-Green, who's a stunningly beautiful lady but a very implausible concerned single mother, moves into an ancient apartment building with her daughter Helena after her husband left them. The jerk went off to Hawaii for a life of partying and flirting with young gals, in fact. Naturally, the new house comes with an eerie and secretive old wardrobe and a nasty neighbor who claims they shouldn't have come here. After the single worst car crash ever staged on film, which leaves both mother and daughter miraculously unharmed, the house slowly unfolds its mysteries. Helena becomes disturbingly obsessed with the tooth fairy, who actually lived in the building and left her marks inside the wardrobe, but is she really a good spirit … or a restless and tormented soul roaming around? The entire film, or at least the first 75 minutes or so, drags endlessly and everything (acting, direction, coherence …) gradually gets worse. It's almost like a toothache that gets more painful because of infection and lack of care. The denouement brings some improvement, even though the twist ending is still somewhat derivative and predictable. Tales about mythical night creatures and fairies gone ballistic shouldn't be boring. Especially not if they are made in Italy. Whatever happened to this country's awesome horror reputation? And now that we're on the subject, why does everyone speak lousy English instead of plain normal Italian? They read their newspaper articles in Italian, so why don't they speak it?

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.

"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.

For starters, I'm no film critic so feel free to flail me for this as its my first attempt at a review. I've just watched this thoroughly expecting it to be Corny as hell but in fact its not bad. I don't usually go for these sort of films but I was bored had nothing to watch. As it happens it was OK, the acting's a bit wooden and you don't really get to know any other characters other than the lead but the story's not bad, not too predictable.The special effects/CGI is done well and not too over the top with the blood and gore. Also it seems to be shot in Italy as there seems to be some Italian writing on newspapers and things with quite fast and very hard to see subs. All in all, its worth a look if your into the thriller/horror films.

Picture this, a blockbuster employee locked in an immobilizing state of flux. Poised between genres, DVD in hand. Then he takes the first tantalizing steps, he is no fool. For he has actually watched "the haunting of Helena" and is not swayed by the devilishly frightening front cover (that which pulled me in I'm afraid) Carefully placing the DVD upon the shelves labeled "comedy" The Blockbuster employee walks away, satisfied at a job well done.

The haunting of Helena is not an awful watch really, that being said it is not at all a horror. It fits into a category better described as "horredy". A horror so poorly conducted that it causes genuine hilarity and thus through a great accident manages to become mildly entertaining.

The protagonist, so memorable her name is in fact one of the only character names I cannot recall, is (for want of a better description) a big wet lettuce. She whines so much it's no wonder her life is in danger all the time, I wanted to kill her too, I would have at least put a measure of effort into making my crimes somewhat scary. The film starts in a promising way, I was impressed by the first scare tactic which took away from the typical "false scare real scare" that is so over used these days. But generally there are a lot of unnecessary over-complications to the plot. I am still unsure as to why the militia were ever involved in anything? Also. Who cut that child's hair? Now that's truly horrendous.