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45%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #2,402
...out of 20,690 movies
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When the unexpected happens, architect Jonathan Rivers has become a grieving widower, wallowing in deep confusion over the death of his wife. But a paranormal expert approaches Jonathan with the unlikely: the ability to hear his wife from beyond the grave. Through a form of unusual communication known as EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), Jonathan will finally be able to see his wife. But in doing so, Jonathan has drawn himself into a much more complex situation when his curiosity becomes an obsession. Only that obsession will have him confront those not of this world, and some of them don't approve of Jonathan's interference with their destructive nature.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: May 23, 2005
EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) is the notion that the deceased can contact the living both aurally and visually through modern electronic mediums; televisions, radios, and phones are all viable means for the dead to contact the living. Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton) finds out about this phenomena when his wife Anna (Chandra West) dies. A few weeks after her death, Jon is contacted by Raymond Price (Ian McNeice), a man who claims that Anna has been sending him messages. Jon dismisses his claims and tells him to go about his own business and leave him alone. One would think that that would be the end of it, but a few weeks after this meeting, Jon receives a phone call to his cellphone... a call that originated from Anna's cellphone. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering that the police gave her cellphone to him after her body was found. Jon rushes home to confirm that her phone is still locked up in his drawer, and indeed it is... and as he's checking, his phone rings again, with the call once again originating from Anna's phone. This prompts Jon to contact Raymond and find out just what it was that he was talking about, and in turn, Raymond explains the whole phenomena that is EVP. During this meeting, Jon also meets up with Sarah Tate (Deborah Kara Unger), a lady whose deceased fiancé contacted Raymond as well. Raymond goes on to reveal that Anna had sent him messages after her death, and that she may still be attempting to contact Jon. The plan is to try to open up the various methods of contact so that Anna can pass her message on to Jon, but things sort of get sidetracked when Raymond mysteriously dies. Jon decides to carry on on his own, and sets up various contact methods in his house... however, he soon finds out that while EVP is quite real and that there are plenty of spirits (not just Anna) attempting to contact the living, there's also a number of evil spirits using these devices...
There's more to the storyline that I'll get to in a moment, but this is the basic setup for tonight's feature film. If the movie had ended where I finished up the summary, this would have been one hell of a horror / thriller movie, and I surely would have given it a high rating. The atmosphere is set up nicely by means of a slow build-up of supernatural occurrences, along with a great storyline to compliment said events. The idea of using EVP (a real phenomena, mind you) as the basis for the storyline set up what could have been one of the better horror films of the year. EVP is definitely interesting enough to keep the audience entertained, realistic enough to leave them wondering "What if?", and could potentially be made scary enough to have some great scenes. Such is the case with the first half hour or so of the film, but then things take a turn for the (much) worse.
This paragraph contains minor spoilers. It's nothing that isn't already revealed in the trailers, but if you're like me and prefer to be surprised at the plot twists, you may want to skip. After we get to the point in the storyline where the above summary wraps up, a new storyline kicks in. Various spirits are contacting Jon in order to have him pass on their messages to their loved ones. Does that sound familiar to anyone else? There's also a few spirits that contact him that aren't actually dead yet... when those spirits pop up, Jon must make an effort to save them before they actually turn into spirits. This is actually pretty mind-boggling, but since this is a movie, I guess it can be forgiven even though it is extremely far-fetched. Standing in his way, however, are evil spirits who wish to see those people die for whatever reason.
After the events in the above paragraph start to occur, the movie is one hell of a roller coaster ride; that is, a roller coaster ride in which the peak of the tracks (the beginning of the movie) is excellent, and the bottom of the tracks (the rest of the movie) is pure and utter crap. Yes, it's a rollercoaster-ride all right... an extremely fast trip from the top of those tracks down to the bottom. M. Night Shyamalan made the whole "I see dead people" storyline work out in "The Sixth Sense". Say what you will about how overrated the movie was, but the storyline was brilliantly done there. Here, it seems as though they just needed something catchy to move the film along, so they shamelessly ripped off Night's ideas. If that wasn't enough, they also throw in the storyline that will set up the (extremely rushed and predictable) finish of the movie. I won't spoil it here, but it makes the preceding horrendous storyline twists look amazing in comparison. The only saving grace of the film, besides the beginning of the storyline, is the acting. Everyone involved does a solid job with their characters; there's no break-through performances to be found here, but everyone involved is quite capable of handling their roles.
One last note - be sure to turn the subtitles on when any of the EVP messages start to play. You'll miss out on damned near everything if you don't, as they are played at an extremely low volume and muffled to hell and back. While I give them points for realism, I sure would have been pissed if I had plunked down the ten bucks to watch this in the theater and missed out on all of that dialog.
If you watch the first half hour of the film and then shut off your DVD player, you'll have an excellent movie that'll certainly leave you satisfied. If, however, you decide to watch the movie in its entirety, you'll wind up severely disappointed in much the same way that I did. 9/10 for the first half hour and 1/10 for the rest... so, I'll go with a 4/10 for the overall product.
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#1:
bassdemon17
- added December 15, 2005 at 11:08am
Spoilers warning....
I agree with
most of the above review except I think what was
going on with the "spirits" that needed help was
that they weren't actually spirits, but a glimpse
of what was to come as seen by Anna (some believe
that the 'other side' isn't restricted to time as
we are). She was just the messenger, sending him
out to try to help these people before the violent
spirits could get to them. At the same time, the
violent spirits had their own guy monitoring noise
and doing their bidding.
This movie
seemed like a really bad mix of the tv shows
Crossing Over and Early Edition with a touch of
The Sixth Sense. From the middle to the end of the
movie, it starts to get so unrealistic that it
loses that feeling of 'it could happen' and takes
the plunge into the bad movie catagory. It had the
potential to be a good movie. If only certain
parts had been changed and filmed differently I
would have greatly enjoyed it. You'll realize what
I'm talking about once you see it. Cheers.
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#2:
ScarsRstarS
- added January 10, 2006 at 8:18am
I hated it. Cant stand this film. One of teh
biggest load of crap i sat and watched at the
pictures ever.
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#3:
Nirrad
- added September 27, 2007 at 11:59pm
I got this movie for free and I agree that the
first half is awesome, then its one of those
movies that goes to shit. The ending was
interesting, but kinda ruins the feeling of the
movie like Boogyman does. 5/10
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