The Falling Movie Review – Weird and Just Plain Strange

Runtime: 102 minutes

Release Date: April 24, 2014

Rating: ?

Director: Carol Morley

The Falling is one of those movies that the roommate and I picked up at Family Video because of the box art and the synopsis on the back. While we got through the whole movie, I can safely say that it's not one I would ever watch again.

Set in the turbulent 1960s, the film tells the story of a young teenage girl named Lydia. She lives alone with her mother, who has a fear of going outside and spends most of her time holed up in her own bedroom. Lydia becomes friends with Abbie. While Lydia is quiet and meek, Abbie is boisterous and out of control. She loves telling her friend about her sexual exploits.

When Abbie dies, Lydia finds herself taking on her former friend's role in school. Though she abstains from sexual intercourse, she does form a strange relationship with her own brother. That leads to her suffering from a fainting spell, but when she faints multiple times, the doctors cannot determine the cause. To make things even worse, the other girls in her new group of friends suddenly begin passing out as well, creating an epidemic in their small town.

The Falling is a strange movie that got some great reviews, but after watching it, I feel like I must have missed something. It literally has an average rating of 7+ out of 10 on some sites, but I have absolutely no clue why. It's an incredibly confusing movie that goes from nothing happening to major information thrown at you in short chunks. I had a hard time following it, and my roommate even fell asleep halfway through and went to bed without finishing it.

We are both fans of a Japanese movie called Stacey about teenage girls who become zombies after having sex, and the plot of this movie made it seem like it might be somewhat similar. It is absolutely nothing like that movie. The Falling is really confusing.

Lydia goes from being this meek and quiet girl to someone who bats her eyelashes at her brother and wonders out loud why he doesn't look at her the same way he did her friend. Then she can't understand why her mother flips out when she finds them going at it in their bed. It also features an incredibly weird and confusing ending that left me wondering what the hell just happened.

If you're looking for an answer as to what happened to the girls and why they suddenly started fainting all over the place, don't look at me. The Falling never bothers to explain that crucial piece of information. It's apparently just something like hysteria, where all the girls want to pass out because the other girls do. I really didn't like the movie, and I really don't want to watch it again.

Dark Places – Read the Book

Runtime: 113 minutes

Release Date: June 18, 2015

Rating: R

Director: Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Libby Day was just as a child when she lost her entire family. Her older brother Ben became the chief suspect and landed in prison for the murders of his mother and two younger sisters. Libby became an overnight sensation for her survival, landing on the covers of magazines and doing television appearances. She even wrote a best selling book and had a group of fans raise donations in the form of $1 million for her.

Years later, Libby is an adult and still trying to recover from the events of that night. After a meeting with her agent, she learns that all the money is nearly gone because she lived off it her entire life without working a single day. She gets a letter from a young man named Lyle who asks her to meet with his group one night. His group attempts to solve mysteries and loves serial killer crimes, and he can pay her for participating.

When Libby attends, she learns that many people believe that he brother is innocent of the crime. Many think it was her estranged POS father, while others think Libby herself is to blame because she named her brother as the killer. As Libby becomes caught up in the mystery surrounding what actually happened that night, she discovers that she knows less about her family than she ever believed.

After reading and watching Gone Girl, I downloaded Dark Places and read it in a single night. It was so good that I couldn't put it down, couldn't stop talking about it, and raved to everyone that it was so much better than Gone Girl. The twists that came at the end kept me gasping page after page, and I spent much of the book trying to figure out what happened. Sadly, Dark Places was nothing like the book.

The book did a great job of making you suspect every single character and keeping you guessing. Once it finally started wrapping up all its loose ends, it was like one amazing new piece of information every page. The movie takes too long to tie up those loose ends. You learn one piece of information, get another boring scene, learn something else, another boring scene, something new. I was so excited for my boyfriend to try and figure out the ending, but it took so long for us to learn everything that it wound up being a let down.

There were multiple things that both my roommate and my boyfriend didn't understand that I had to explain. It was like the screenwriter assumed that everyone who watched Dark Places read the book and would know what was coming. Other things were glossed over so quickly that it took awhile to remember what happened earlier in the movie.

While there was some good acting in the movie, it really didn't compare to Gone Girl. Charlize Theron gave Libby such a cool and calm attitude that it seemed like she didn't give a shit about anything that happened and that she never worried or felt any type of danger. It just gave me a cold feeling that made me want to go back and read the book.

The Call – "You're an operator. You can't do this!"

Runtime: 94 minutes
Release Date: March 15, 2013
Rating: R
Director: Brad Anderson


Jordan Turner (Halle Berry, Gothika) is working as a 911 operator when she receives a call from a young girl. Fearing that someone is in the house, Jordan tells her how to hide and wait for police to arrive. When the call disconnects, Jordan calls back. The ringing phone alerts the killer, who grabs her and drags her out of the house. When Jordan later hears that they found the girl's body, she decides to stop working as an operator.


Several months later, Jordan now works as a trainer to help new workers handle calls. Though she has no plans to step back onto the phone lines, that all changes when a new call comes into the office. Casey is a teenage girl who was kidnapped by the same man who killed the previous girl. The man grabbed her out of a parking lot and tossed her in his trunk. It's up to Jordan to help Casey survive and bring justice for the man's other victims.


The Call is another of those films that I had high hopes for. I've read and heard stories from people working as 911 operators, and I don't think I could ever handle working that job. When I saw the trailer and realized that it was a horror-like film about someone who works in a 911 call center, I thought it would be interesting. While it did have some good moments, it wasn't nearly as good as I hoped.


The first half of the film is great. Jordan comes back to work but she makes it clear that she can't handle her old job. She can train other people and even briefly talk about her experiences, but the idea of sitting down and taking a call fills her with dread. Of course, that all changes when the new call comes into an operator. It seems pretty unrealistic that she would jump up and take back the job after constantly bringing up that she can't handle it.


Then we have to deal with her actually walking away from the job. I'm sure these people go to great lengths every day, but how many of those people do you think would literally get up and go on a frenzied mention to find someone. No one in the movie ever mentions that Jordan would pretty much come back to find her boyfriend/supervisor hating her and her without a job. And let's not get started on the ending. It's so incredibly unrealistic that I haven't heard a single person say that they liked it. I liked The Call when I initially saw it (or at least thought it was an okay film), but after thinking about it, I don't think I'll ever see it again.

Movie Review: “Reservoir Hill”

Rating: NR

Runtime: 65 minutes

Release Date: 2009

Director: Thomas Robins, David Stubbs

Beth (Beth Chote) moves to a new town called Reservoir Hill with her mother. Everyone in town stops and takes a second look when she passes by because she looks exactly like Tara, a young woman who vanished less than a year ago. She quickly notices a group of men in dark hoods staring at her wherever she goes, and people seem almost afraid of her.

She also becomes friends with some of Tara's old friends, including one girl who seems to be the only one in town who actually likes her. Another girl takes a photograph of her and passes it around to show people how much she looks like Tara. Beth keeps telling people that she isn't Tara, but she begins to wonder if they share a connection.

It doesn't help when she meets the family of the missing girl. Tara's sister has an emotional breakdown that lands her in the hospital, and she later refers to Beth by her sister's name. Tara's mother shouts at her and treats her like the devil, and the girl's brother is the only one who seems genuinely nice. She also manages to meet and start dating a guy, who was the last person seen with Tara before she went missing. All of this leads up to the “shocking” revelation at the end that explains what happened.

“Reservoir Hill” was one of those movies that left me going, what the fuck? Some reports claim that this was a failed pilot that a New Zealand network ran as a standalone movie, and apparently there was a second film made that follows the story from its ending. I really need to see that second film because I'm curious how they kept the story going.

I hate to spoil a movie for anyone, so if you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now.

*****SPOILER*****

It turns out that Beth is actually Tara. Tara was the most popular girl at school. Everyone feared her, but everyone wanted to be her best friend too. She ruled the school and treated everyone like crap, including her best friends. She and her sister had a fight, which led to her sister pushing her over a bridge. Her former friends lure her back to the bridge and reveal that they knew the truth all along.

They went down to the river, found her body, and drug her into an old building. They basically brainwash her into believing that she's actually Beth, and the woman she knew as her mother was in on it all along. The woman was a teacher who had her life ruined by Tara, so she was perfectly willing to go along with the whole scheme. I don't know about you, but if some chick ruined my life, the last thing I would want to do is be super close to her for six months.

That was just, I don't know, the last thing I expected. I'm not sure how a group of teenage girls could brainwash another girl into believing that she was a completely different person, especially given how strong they keep saying Tara was before. On top of that, how would a mother not realize the girl in front of her was her real daughter? Tara's sister notices it, but the mom just thinks the other girl is the devil. Of course, that doesn't stop her from totally accepting her at the end of the film.

*****END SPOILER*****

“Reservoir Hill” is currently available on Netflix to watch instantly, just in case you want to give it a shot.

Movie Review: “Silent House”

Runtime: 87 minutes
Release Date: March 9, 2012
Rating: R

It takes a hell of an actress to pull off a movie where she’s pretty much the only actor, but Elizabeth Olsen can do it. I wanted to see “Silent House” from the moment I saw the first trailer, and it actually came pretty close to meeting my expectations.

Sarah (Olsen, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”) is helping clean out her family’s lakehouse before they sell it. It’s just her, her dad (Adam Trese), and her mother’s brother Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens). The two men barely get along, and her dad seems frustrated that she’s not moving fast enough cleaning out the bedroom she once shared with her cousins.

A knock on the door introduces us to Sophia (Julia Taylor Ross). Sophia hugs Sarah and reminds her of all the time they spent playing together as kids. Though Sarah doesn’t remember her, she does agree to meet up with her later that night to hang out. After a fight with her dad, Peter leaves and heads into town for some tools.

Sarah locks the door behind him because the door only locks with an old-fashioned key on the inside. She helps herself to a beer and finally starts cleaning out the house. When she hears a noise upstairs, she rushes to her dad’s side and he investigates. He comes across a series of photographs and stuffs them in his pocket, telling her that it’s insurance stuff. When they get back to work, she hears a second noise and discovers her dad injured on the floor.

“Silent House” then evolves into a dark and twisted movie about the dangers of family and things that go bump in the night. As Sarah begins seeing mysterious visitors in the home, she uncovers a twisted story that relates to her family and in particular her father.

The first half of “Silent House” is exactly what I was hoping for in a horror movie. Delinquents broke out the windows in the house, and Peter covered the broken glass with plywood. The inside of the house is almost completely dark, illuminated only by candles and lanterns that the characters carry with them. That dark setting adds a dramatic atmosphere to the film, making it hard to see what’s coming.

As much as I enjoyed the first part of the movie, the second half gets bogged down by details and unrealistic elements. When Sarah manages to escape the house, she lets her uncle take her back and actually goes inside the house. I made a joke about the ending of the movie, which turned out to be the actual ending, and I really hate when that happens.

The last part of the movie almost feels like a letdown because you know what you want to happen and what you think might happen, and you will likely end up disappointed. “Silent House” is the kind of movie that I would want to watch again, but only for the tight and exciting first half.