Vanishing on 7th Street (2011)

Expected more

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Conceptually, this is a cool movie: all of a sudden, the world is plunged in to darkness. Those that vanish in to the night are never seen again. And those that survive to see the sunrise find that even the sun itself is beginning to disappear, bit by bit."Vanishing on 7th Street" is presented to maximize confusion and to scare the pants off you. With a high-contrast visual style where light sources are constantly blown out, it definitely has a unique look all its own, and the whispering, living darkness will make you think twice about sleeping with the lights off.Here's the problem: adrift in an ocean of style, the movie barely gives you anything to hold on to. Some of it is being cryptic on purpose, and that's fine, but other parts of it just don't have enough meat on their bones. Or, like, uh, any at all.Vanishing on 7th Street doesn't have any characters. This should be obvious enough, as the lights go out barely even five minutes in to the film without establishing anything or any one. It's not until almost halfway through the movie that anything really begins to solidify in to a coherent narrative, and even then, the cast of characters we're given mostly exists as the same "scared survivor" clichés that have become so common in zombie movies: the traumatized orphan, the hardened curmudgeon, and so on. Hope gets lost, nerves get frayed, guns get pointed, and should we leave him? I DON'T KNOW, MAN! WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE! LET'S GO! The movie throws out vague ideas about what *could* be going on, but they never amount to anything more than just suggestions. And so, our characters of one-dimensional stereotypes move from light source to light source, running from shadows, and doing incomprehensible things that jeopardize their own safety for no other reason than to manufacture fake tension.It all feels a little thin -- a spooky concept that just needs to be fleshed out a little more. I'm not asking for it to over-explain itself to death, I'm just asking for it to explain literally anything at all even a little. It doesn't.

Vanishing on 7th Street is another non mainstream supernatural thriller. However this film is a disappointment. Director Brad Anderson's film is a conventional genre exercise, but the choices he and screenwriter Anthony Jaswinski make cripple the exercise right off the bat, and the film never overcomes the built-in handicaps. In short, the menace the film is built around is never menacing, and that's not because of the concept so much as the execution. There's something creepy about the notion of evil that hides itself in any shadow in a world where light is slowly slipping away, and there are a few moments in the film that suggest just how a subtle, creepy version of that film might play. Although there are some moments of unintentional comedy played by Hayden Christensen as the other members, Vanishing doesn't provide much or anything new. As pointed out by many, the ending seemed to be unfinished as it wraps everything up with many unanswered questions.

This movie is interpretable as the director want it to be.It has religious elements about life and what we do do it as long as we walk in the light of good,as long as we are enlightened.Our sins and bad acts create dark to our life,to our soul.. Why at the end only the children has remaining and ride a horse?Because children are sinless and animals too are creation of God even animals doesn't have soul,than biological breathe.It is twisted-mind by the way and every character has his own good play that sends to watcher a strong feeling of mystery,something not found that keeps your mind searching and searching for any explication.

Existentialist horror film from director Brad Anderson ("Session 9") and writer Anthony Jaswinski exploits the all too understandable human fear of the dark. It stars Hayden Christensen as Luke (a reporter), Thandie Newton as Rosemary (a physical therapist), John Leguizamo as Paul (a movie theatre employee), and newcomer Jacob Latimore as James (a 12 year old son of a barmaid). They're brought together in a bar when mysterious forces overwhelm the city of Detroit, turning daytime into the night time. Also, dark spirits seem to be everywhere, and the human population of the city has mostly disappeared (leaving only piles of clothes behind). These four people must ponder such questions as why this has happened and why it's the four of them that are left, in addition to struggling to survive.Anderson creates such spooky atmosphere and tension that it's a shame that the film doesn't work better than it does. This viewer would agree with others that it does feel like an unfinished script, and it leaves people wanting to know what comes next. Obviously, Jaswinski and Anderson aren't about to really explain anything in this slim story, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but then our four main characters are never fleshed out that much. Therefore, it's hard to maintain much rooting interest in them, despite the best efforts of this cast. Still, you do feel for Rosemary and James to some degree since they don't know the fates of their son and mother (respectively). The film is very well shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio by Uta Briesewitz, with the lighting never revealing more than it should, and the visual effects are generally well done. One of the main problems is that the set-up is just too familiar to be that engaging. For one thing, the piles of clothes left behind automatically calls to mind "Night of the Comet" from 26 years previous.Look for Andersons' filmmaking peer Larry Fessenden as a bike messenger.Six out of 10.