Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Salubfoto It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

TheLittleSongbird Saw 'Home', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued by the idea which was reasonably different when it comes to recent viewings of horror. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.Giving 'Home' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'Home' is a great film because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.Starting with the positives, generally the production values could have been much worse. There is a real sense of eeriness, foreboding and a decently stylish atmosphere, and it makes the most of the confined and at times effectively claustrophobic setting. The music is also suitably haunting and manages to not be too intrusive, likewise with the sound not being too obvious (a bugbear of mine with low-budget viewings recently).There is tension, suspense and genuine creepiness. The acting is better than average, with the three leads carrying the film pretty decently.Would have liked however more tension and suspense and for some of the scares to be more creative and less trying-too-hard to the point of cheesiness. The dialogue is cheesy and awkward generally. Found that the story could have been executed better too. Too many parts are uneventful, the narrative structure is not always coherent and it can feel padded, not to mention an ending that perplexes in its anti-climactic and muddled convolution. There are exceptions to the better than expected production values, the effects are shoddy and the editing could have been tighter.Overall, better than expected but didn't blow me away. 5/10 Bethany Cox

maggiemaggamuff-69556 I wish there would be a sequel. The story spans over decades and is very well written. If you're into horror / thriller films, you will be sucked into the atmosphere and story line and you'll keep watching again and again to be taken back to that place of mystery and suspense, seeing things you missed the last time you watched. If you liked The Ring, you'll love this as far as atmosphere and suspense.

TdSmth5 A young couple visits the guy's uncle. He's got $500 if the girl plays a game. She picks a happy face pin from a box and has to guess under which of the cups it'll be after the creepy old man spins the cups around. She guesses right 3 times and the third time the pin has an ash cross over it. The uncle tells her she's been chosen and to go to a crossroad and say her name so "he" will know who she is and then gives her the $500.Back at home the girl hears something and she's lifted in the air and thrown around. She tries to bury the money, then burn it but it keeps appearing in her drawer.Next we meet a pretty real estate agent. She has a sister who's an artist and is about to do an exhibition. The agent visits an empty house she's going to sell. There she sees the girl from the intro. She tells the owners who think it may their missing daughter who ran away with her boyfriend. But then it turns out the daughter is found. The agent discovers that the girl she's seeing is someone else who committed suicide. But then, the unseen force kills her.Now her sister, the artist, picks things up. She interviews one of the suicide's friends who tells her all sorts of info on the girl. Then the artist is attacked by the force and ends up in the hospital. When she wakes up from a coma she's told that she's pregnant. During the ultrasound she sees an evil face on the screen and demands the doctors take out the kid. Several years later she visits her creepy-looking daughter.I had high hopes for At the Devil's Door. I enjoyed the writer/director's previous effort The Pact, although he's yet another male who insists on making movies without any significant male characters. Is that what it takes these days to make it in Hollywood? Unfortunately this movie is a step in the wrong direction. The strongest female, Ashley Rickards, gets only the secondary role of the intro girl, while the weakest actress get the more significant role. The main problem though is the nonsensical story. A movie about a demon looking to procreate should make for a good horror movie actually. But here it's told in too roundabout a way. You can't really care about most of the characters including the main character, which is a terrible flaw. Like most movies, this one, too, goes eventually on mute with no one saying much of anything, certainly the demon doesn't say a whole lot, he doesn't even make a sound.That said, Nicholas McCarthy is a good director, perhaps not so much when it comes to telling a story, but definitely when it comes to shooting a movie. And he goes for subtlety instead of hyper explicitness--always a good idea in horror. So when we see the demon, it's usually at a distance, unfocused in the background, or in a mirror reflection. That does make the demon less menacing, which is why he should have been given more of a voice. At the Devil's Door is a movie that had potential but most if it was unrealized.

ArdentViewer I didn't think it was awful - I thought it had promise and was interesting for the most part. However, the execution came up short. So, I'm going to split the difference and give it a 5/10.Positives *Nice visual atmosphere *Generally kept my interest *Decent acting *Mostly good conceptNegatives *Disjointed - the main characters kept changing throughout. I think Vera was brought to the forefront too close to the end of the movie to be an acceptable protagonist. *Plot holes and inconsistencies (to be discussed further) *Soundtrack was EXTREMELY distracting – I was more startled by the sudden volume and tempo changes than by anything on the screen. Music should be there to enhance the mood, not to shove it down the viewer's throat. *Lack of resemblance between the two "sisters." Naya Rivera and Catalina Moreno could hardly look more different if they tried. They have distinct skin tones, hair type and color, face shape, facial structure, eye-and-nose-shape just to name a few features. If this was meant as a vehicle for Naya, they should have chosen an actress who more closely resembled her. To me, the dissimilarities were distracting. PLOT HOLES Even with the suspension of disbelief (a prerequisite for watching horror movies), there should be some consistency and dare I say it, logic to the theme and the scares. 1. There should have been more explanation regarding the teenager and his uncle. What was their relationship with the devil? How did it come about in the first place? What did they get out of the deal? There was so little there that these two characters might as well have been discarded on the cutting room floor. At that level, their inclusion was more harmful than helpful. They didn't take it far enough2. If Hannah sold her soul to the devil, wouldn't the devil's domain be her and her alone? How and why would Satan have been able to wait so long and attempt to inhabit someone else? Wouldn't there have been better things to do, more souls to conquer, etc.? It doesn't make sense that just because Leigh and Vera both went into the house, saw "Hannah," and touched the soot, they would have been ripe for the picking. In some movies, the devil can get anyone and everyone - but this film was not presented in this manner at the outset. If the devil could get to both Leigh and Vera, why not Charlene, the runaway daughter? It would have had ample opportunity with her living in the house. 3. What Vera saw at times didn't really make sense. If she was seeing the pretend Hannah (and later, her "daughter"), why would she also see various manifestations of demons/the devil in the same situation? Why do both? It seems like an awful lot of effort with no purpose. 4. Why did Vera even get to live? If the goal was to create offspring so that the devil could be "all of someone," wouldn't Vera have served her purpose as the vessel? It was obvious that the only reason she remained was to extend the movie. I don't think the ending added anything. Vera would hopefully have realized that it would be impossible to kill the devil's spawn. But if that was her goal, why did she leave with the child instead? We didn't see any overt manipulation/possession that could account for this behavior. To me, the ending fell flat.