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14 out of 18 people found the following review useful: "thinking man's horror film", 14 March 2003 Author: exoticafan (exoticafan@yahoo.com) from Godzilla Manor
The above tag line is a tip-of-the-hat nod to a previous IMDB user, and I agree. Seriously, I have never read such a deep divide in viewers over a horror movie! I have to wonder about people who call this movie "boring." What do audiences want from horror films today? There is real fear, dread and (most importantly) disorienting. I must agree that many younger minds with short attention spans will not enjoy this movie, but if you were intrigued by 12 Monkeys, Memento, Eraserhead, and other movies you HAD TO WATCH AND THINK ABOUT, I highly recommend this movie. Don't like loose ends? Tough! Want everything explained? Out of luck! But if you read Phillip K. Dick, H.P. Lovecraft or William Hope Hodgson, you will be pleased with this highly literate movie. I am looking forward to more from the director.
12 out of 15 people found the following review useful: Original and Entertaining, 8 May 2003 Author: Sean Ragan (iamanangelchaser@yahoo.com) from Austin, Texas
This movie has exactly the right balance between horror and humor and, more importantly, between revealing too much and revealing too little. Some questions are answered at the end, but some are not, and I for one like that some are not. It is not a pat, boil-in-the-bag horror movie. It is intelligent and requires that you pay attention, but it's not as if that's terribly hard to do, because it succeeds in being entertaining throughout. Those expecting pornographic vivisections will be disappointed; compared to movies like "Hellraiser," this film is more rightly classified as "psychological thriller" than horror. It remains an excellent movie, however, and if you don't get it maybe you ought to watch again. Pay a bit more attention next time.
14 out of 19 people found the following review useful: Dueling Narratives, 2 October 2002 Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
'The Magus' meets 'Twelve Monkeys' meets 'Peeping Tom' meets 'No Such Thing.'Give this film a chance. Sure it is clumsily produced, numbly acted and ineptly directed. Most films are, but the writer is working on something interesting here. What 'the Cube' was to staging, this is to plot twists. And unlike 'Memento' or 'Mulholland Drive,' there is no single 'explanation.'Start with this thought: someone in the play wrote the play, but to everyone else, the pages are blank. Whose perspective are we following?The simple answer is that some mysterious Dr. Ek is manipulating the situation with drugs and actors. But wait! The actors (and Ek and house) are imaginary because someone is manipulating the whole thing directly with noodles into the brain. But if there is manipulation or noodling, it is to get the book (the script) which has mystical powers of creation. But wait! If the book has such powers, probably the whole thing is a matter of psychic hallucination resulting from a ritual interaction with the book. In this case, the solution is simple.But wait! The book comes with the house, the house forcing Trevor to write the book, then forming the basis of nearly all the vision and forcing him to write constantly to populate it. This is one of the two novel ideas: that the house is one of the possible powers behind the thing. Orson Welles worked with this. A few haunted house films. 'Belly of an Architect,' for instance. Few others, but highly intellectual.The other clever idea is that several forces are at war to control and tell us the story. Trevor, Ek, the book, the house. No one in particular wins and the movie you see depends a lot on how you see the world. '2001' used this trick (HAL, the humans, and the aliens) but most famously in popular film : 'Children of Paradise.' This is one of the few films I know which would have been improved with less nudity. Its just too clunky and unnatural and it distracts from the cleverness. But about that nudity: the second time I saw this was from a DVD rented from Blockbuster. As with many direct-to-video projects, Blockbuster cuts out some nudity in versions manufactured specifically for them. Still pretty shocking in one spot though.This film follows 'Blair Witch 2' in sophistication of nested and warring narratives and makes me impressed by the ability of kids today to manage these abstract notions.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.
6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: Curiouser and curiouser..., 4 August 2002 Author: Gina (runswithscissors57@hotmail.com) from Tucson, AZ
I am honestly not sure what to make of this film. When I came here to read the reviews, it was mainly to find out what the heck had happened, why I was left so confused and frustrated when the credits rolled. This and Mulholland Drive are two of the most confusing movies I have ever seen, and I have the distinct impression that one of two things happened with each movie: either the film was incredibly well-done, well-acted, well-shot, and well-written and just flew over my head because I'm too stupid to understand it, or it was shoddily written and pieced together like a puzzle assembled by a drugged, blindfolded, mitten-clad psycho. I'd like to think that I'm intelligent enough to pick up on clues in a movie, so the fact that both of them left me so puzzled frustrated me beyond belief.Having read the reviews, I have a better understanding of what Attic Expeditions was about. I'd like to give it a third viewing (yes, I've already watched it twice, to no avail) and see if I can actually follow it. I enjoyed Seth Green's performance, although I can see how he might be chided for copying Brad Pitt's "12 Monkeys" character. I enjoyed the way the movie was shot, I enjoyed the twisted-ness of it. Some of it was awkward and predictable, but only at the last minute. You'd be given a tiny clue about something, then you'd guess what it was and right away you'd be rewarded with the information you just guessed.I'm sorry if this is obtuse, but I'm trying not to give anything away here. If you're curious to know what I thought upon my third viewing after knowing more of what it was about, feel free to e-mail me. Or maybe I'll leave another review here. Or maybe I'll just take the DVD, toss in onto a burning pile of other movies I hated, and never look back.Stay tuned.
4 out of 5 people found the following review useful: One of those scripts you have to explain to everyone, 24 July 2002 Author: Shawn (shelbydz87) from Denver, CO
I can just see the writer and producer sitting down after they finish reading it: "Umm, what does it mean?" "He completed the spell, and his Fiance is stuck in a psychopath's body." "Ahhhh. . . Cool!"I'll give this movie points for creativity, camera work, and lighting. Very well shot film and some pretty scenes to look at. However, there were a lot of cliche's in this film too. Flashing back to scenes already played, fast cuts, hard music and bugs, scary white people coming out of uniformed houses. There's a lot of this style out now days, it's getting old.The only reason I continued to watch the movie was because I didn't know what the hell was going on. The one thing the movie understood was that, it's scarier if we don't know what's happening. (something horror writers now days need to understand) However, it's always nice to kinda tell us (if not at the end, then somewhere), what was actually going on. It can be done w/o explanation (see The Birds), but I'm still confused.It had potential, but I think they flushed it down the drain.
5 out of 7 people found the following review useful: This movie is not very good, 5 July 2006 Author: artistatrest
Anyone can make a disjointed tale with blood, sex and drugs, that has no plot line, has a lot of inexplicable happenings and has no tie up at the end and we are supposed to think its really deep? Is that what passes for a psychological thriller now in 2006? Spare me. I watched the whole thing and I was bored silly. It wasn't even done well enough for me to want to know what the real story was.There must be a sane starting point at either the beginning or end. it certainly won't be in the middle...Something to hang onto. This one did neither. Waste of time and I am not a kid with a short attention span. However, The I Inside with Ryan Phillipe and Robert Sean Leonard is excellent and did make me think. Check it out.
8 out of 13 people found the following review useful: too many twist, 28 May 2005 Author: movieman_kev from United States
Trevor (Andras Jones from Nightmare on Elm Street 4 and Sorority babes in the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama) kills his girlfriend and is sentenced to a stay in the half way house for loons by Dr. Elk (genre staple Jeffrey Combs). But things are not nearly what they seem. I wanted to like this I really did, and to it's merit it did start off rather well, but as it went on it became a casualty of too many twists spoiling the stew. The ending is anti-climatic as well and left me thinking "Is that it???" I read that this is a 'thinking persons' horror film. I'm sorry but that's pretty laughable as anyone with half a brain could follow it. Mindfu@k movies can be good, when they have a point to them (ie. Fight Club, the Twin peaks series) But this isn't one of those.And Seth Green isn't really the best actor in the world to put it diplomatically.My Grade: C- DVD Extras: both widescreen and fullscreen versions; behind the scenes featurette; and Theatrical trailer Eye Candy: Beth Bates shows everything, Shannon Cleary goes full frontal
8 out of 13 people found the following review useful: Unpleasant. Unfinished. Avoid., 16 June 2001 Author: Jonathan Dunn (jondunn@speakeasy.org) from Seattle, WA
Promising in some ways. It looks like it might go somewhere - until the last half hour, which becomes increasingly unpleasant and confusing, climaxing in an arrogant or incompetent refusal to explain and fill in the loose ends. The performances and photography are quite competent. Unfortunately, it all collapses like a schizoid house of cards at the end. When it works, it feels like a combination of Suspiria and Jacob's Ladder.
3 out of 4 people found the following review useful: Every small town needs a Dr. Eck and a House of Love! This I command..., 14 April 2007 Author: Andy (film-critic) from Bookseller of the Blue Ridge
There was a film I reviewed a bit ago entitled "13 Seconds", in which your typical horror genre gets a confusing twist ending coupled with horrid acting and a bland plot. As you can tell, I wasn't a fan of this film and was momentarily turned away from cheap horror movies. "13 Seconds" garnered several awards, is recognized in the film community, but for me was just a sloppy film with the irritable inconsistent voice dub. I think that is what harmed this film the most – but then I gave up on my plight to avoid cheap horror films and decided to watch the equally low-budget horror/suspense/thriller film "The Attic Expeditions", and I must admit, I was rejuvenated. This film was a breath of confusing fresh air. From the sporadic, yet strong, opening, through the rest of this nonconsecutive film about magik (with a "K"), the philosophy of modern medicine, and perhaps love, I was hooked. From the films that I have watched lately, this was one that I was eager to start from the beginning and watch again. While I cannot say that director Jeremy Kasten has created a flawless film, he has impressed me by giving us a strong story with a limited budget. This was a film obviously loved by everyone involved and in my eyes has the ability to become a cult classic if watched by an open-mind audience.We follow the story of Trevor Blackburn, who may or may not have killed his fiancé while performing a magik ritual. Due to possible insanity, he is operated on and forced to recuperate in a facility simply called "House of Love". It is in this "house" that Trevor continues to have flashbacks coupled with nightmares, coupled with sudden murders of the other tenants. He is observed, from a distance – through television monitors, by a Dr. Eck (played sinisterly by Jeffrey Combs) and his associate, Dr. Coffee (played by Ted Raimi). This give us the impression that perhaps this is not the place we assume, and that it is just a set-up by Eck for a more dutiful purpose. Then, quite classically, as we think we know the truth to this film, director Kasten gives us one last push of the unknown and before the screen our minds are shattered.I think what appealed to me the most was that albeit this was a very low-budget film, the creators did everything possible to make this less cheap and more detail oriented. I loved the visual style of this film. The way that our characters acted, the way the interacted with each other, and their deadpan ability to bring the unknown to the surface. It was as if I was watching "Evil Dead" for the first time (not that I want to draw similarities – it was just a similar viewing experience). There were elements of Gilliam, mixed with Raimi, mixed with Nolan all rolled together. Although the international name for this film is "Memento 2", please do not connect the two. This film stands on its own. Kasten assembled a flawless cast with a surprising turn from Seth Green (playing a very Patrick Bateman character) and the always fun Jeffrey Combs. I even enjoyed the Kyle MacLachlan-esquire style of Andras Jones – then there was Ted Raimi, whom didn't almost fit within this film, but still made it fun to see him sweat. Alas, those eager to see Alice Cooper, he was only in it for a brief moment, though the special features claim he was a valuable asset to the production. I didn't see it. With this seemingly strong cast in place, it was up to the storyteller to get the rest in motion – and it happens successfully."The Attic Expeditions" is not a one-time-viewing film. I think what makes me rave so much about this film is the way the story was told, out of context, out of consecutive order, out of sanity. You cannot make an assumption about this film from just one viewing, one must go back – rewatch, and enjoy. I will say this much, it is not a film for everyone. The scenes can be unsettling and a bit disturbing since you do not quite fully know if he is in his mind or in ours. Rather disturbing actually. Kasten plays not only with the character's minds, but also with ours. "The Attic Expeditions" is one of those films that leaves the room either going, "gosh that was horrible", or wide open for discussion. For me, I needed someone to talk to. I wasn't sure what was real, and what was in Trevor's mind. That is what makes this film stand out. While there were some shots of a boom in some scenes, but again, that is what makes this low-budget film even better. Concentrate on what you cannot comprehend, and this will be a phenomenal film for you.Overall, I gotta say that after a slew of mediocre Hollywood budget films, this was a volatile breath of fresh air. I challenge anyone that dislikes this film to ask "why" -- is it because you didn't understand the story or because it was cheaper than the mass produced films. With a film like "The Attic Expeditions", more chances are taken – the risks are higher, and the final product is worth a second viewing. As others have quoted, and I believe them, this is a horror film for those of us that pride ourselves on intelligence. It is smart, challenging, and grossly entertaining. I don't mind calling this film cheap because it entertained me mentally, and I will go back to rewatch to see if a second viewing would un-muddle the questions looming in my mind. I was impressed.If I went insane, I would definitely choose Dr. Eck to ensure my return of sanity! Grade: **** out of *****
4 out of 6 people found the following review useful: Plot synopsis, 30 April 2005 Author: doxxas22
(SPOILER ALERT ...)This movie is about the hero's (Trevor's) need to extricate his soul from a demonic/satanic ritual. That is, after killing Faith, he aborts said ritual (by not killing himself), putting his soul in limbo. The mad scientist somehow finds this out and kidnaps him to find the book used for the ritual. The (incarnate) earthly and trapped parts of his soul wake up from the mad scientist's implantation surgery (which is supposed to allow the mad scientist to read Trevor's thoughts(?)) at almost the same time. (To see this, note that the earthly part wakes up from the implantation surgery just before the one nurse says that her shift is over, while the tormented half wakes up two or three seconds later, just after.) Further evidence that they awaken in parallel realities is that the residents and principals of the "House of Love" introduce themselves to Trevor the second times he awakens, whereas Trevor already knows them. Trevor's knocking on both sides of the trunk (later on) further illustrates this point.Trevor must reunite his ripped, tormented soul. Unwilling to relieve this tension by letting Faith kill him--to complete the ritual--he follows his dreams/visions. He therefore gravitates to the trunk in the attic. The significance of the trunk is revealed in the magic attached to it, which is revealed in the implicit inability of the mad scientist and others, and the explicit inability of Douglas, to open it; the trunk is controlled by a force which allows only Trevor to use it. Inexorably, the pieces of his soul meet (on either side of the opening to the trunk) and unify. Trevor's torment, and the film, abruptly resolve. His painful dreams evaporate and he regains his earthly existence.
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