A
bunch of kids go to an isolated cabin near a
swampy lake in Nowell Lake, Louisiana for some
holiday fun but one of them Megan
(Elizabeth Harnois) is still grieving the suicide
of her twin sister and her boyfriend Christian
(Shawn Ashmore) is trying his best to be
understanding about it all.
At a corner store Megan meets up with an employee
Nick (Tyler Hoffman) who shows her a
magazine with an article about communication with
the dead in the summer solstice, the time of year
when there is the greatest length of daylight.
While this moment happens she seems to have
nightmares about her dead sister as well as
hauntings that follows her around in which she
believes could be her sister as well.
She tries to unravel as to why the suicide
happened in which she snoops around a house of an
eccentric man Leonard (R. Lee Ermey) who
seems to spy on everyone at the cabin.
The film seems quite interesting
but sometimes hard to follow. Yet we see some
kids going away to a cabing resort by a swampy
lake which seems to be the typical thing for
young people to do as well as one of them named
Megan being disturbed about her past which draws
in the suspense by what happens in which we spot
many takes on flashback memories in the flick
which shows good dysfuntional moments and alot of
tragedies which leads to the horror story as of
now.
Then there's many haunting moments as well as
nightmare scene's which involves this troubled
girl which seems very creepy and at times can
almost make you jump too which are great
effective moments to the story making it look
suspenseful.
Good scene's with Megan and Sophie when having a
dysfuntional moment on a situation which looked
quite effective.
There's also some nice dark camera shots on her
slowly walking through a hallway of a cabin
through a hallway with her tensed up which looked
creepy and well done.
Then the story has an oddball older character
named Mr. Thomas who comes across intimidating to
the rest which leads to missing clues to the
horror story making you wonder if he's behind
this mess with some of the strange events
occurring.
There's also the ideal boyfriend Christian who
seems overly protective with Megan in which
brings the story to a nice charm making you think
he can protect her from any bad dreams or
hallucinations she's been having. Yet he may be
too protective.
Then there's the guy next door at a store named
Nick that Megan invites to their cabin in which
Christian seems too jealous about which seems
intimidating wondering if a fight will happen or
not which looked quite impressive.
Nick then decides to do a seance in a lake and
things go crazy as I found this moment to be a
little too obvious and over the top. You will see
what I mean when you watch this film but at the
same time this can be fun.
There are also many good and suspenseful points
surrounding Megan and things happening to her in
which you wonder if she will go overly paranoid
or crazy. It has to do with a little toy sized
teddy bear which looked so cute but seems to be a
voodoo type of curse.
There's also a scene that will keep you glued to
the set while Megan tries to find evidence by
trespassing in a house and then she finds out
that the owner is returning and panicking to get
out wondering if she will make it without getting
caught or yet killed.
The situations unfolding were extremely effective
and intense in which you'd picture in a film like
I Know What You Did Last Summer along
with many black looking ghosts haunting Megan and
others which had neat cheesy effects to the story
that worked well too.
Bottom line is this film was good even if at
times the story might be a little rusty. Someone
mentioned that this film seems to borrow alot
from those young adult novels by R.L. Stine
and Christopher Pike and to think of it
this fellow made a point on that which isn't a
bad thing since I enjoy Stine's novels
(Not Christopher Pike though). There are
teenage kids on a holiday as one of them has a
dark secret and the ghosts haunt them for it
which is similar to those books. So I say hats
off for a good inspiration for a teenage horror
flick like this one.
The acting is somewhat not too bad
as lead actress Elizabeth Harnois (Megan / Sophie) does a
great job by portraying two twin sisters in which
you'd really think that these were two completely
different people alltogether. She brings out some
nice intensity with her performance as well as
doing well with her crying and other saddened
emotions too throughout the film. She also does
well with her obsessions and frightening behavior
too leading to her sanity level. She was a
perfect drawing card to the story.
Shawn Ashmore (Christian) brought some nice
characteristics too as the supposedly caring
boyfriend in the film in which he does well with
his mellow and soft speaking to when he tries to
show his good guy attitude in the film. He
certainly came across well as the clean cut guy
next door type of role.
Tyler Hoechlin (Nick) was a good possible suspect
to all that was happening in the story in which
he seems a little too charming for his role and
knew on how to portray this type of character
too. He had the right looks to play this role and
had the talent too.
Matt O'Leary (Mark) stood out as well as a goofball
type in the film who can come across as quite
annoying to someone who thinks lightly on
problems in which he really made himself
believeable as one of the kinds you can get
annoyed with easily.
R. Lee Ermey (Leonard) was the perfect key role to the
story playing an eccentric old coot in the flick.
He really knew how to act initmidating in his
part with how he approaches others. He seemed to
be a perfect suspect in the film as well as
portrayed a great horror character actor.
There's
many good flute type music for the film which
really makes the scene's sound very effective as
well as some screeching sounds for the haunting
moments as well as some banging sounds for the
jumping moments all done by Jane Antonia
Cornish. |
