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Absentia

Absentia (2011)

March. 03,2011
|
5.8
|
R
| Horror Thriller Mystery

Tricia's husband Daniel has been missing for seven years. Her younger sister Callie comes to live with her as the pressure mounts to finally declare him 'dead in absentia.' As Tricia sifts through the wreckage and tries to move on with her life, Callie finds herself drawn to an ominous tunnel near the house. As she begins to link it to other mysterious disappearances, it becomes clear that Daniel's presumed death might be anything but 'natural.' The ancient force at work in the tunnel might have set its sights on Callie and Tricia—and Daniel might be suffering a fate far worse than death in its grasp.

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Reviews

Perry Kate
2011/03/03

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

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Kamila Bell
2011/03/04

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

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Mandeep Tyson
2011/03/05

The acting in this movie is really good.

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Francene Odetta
2011/03/06

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

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mercedes_sk
2011/03/07

The movie was ok. I don't regret watching it but I wouldn't watch it again. I gotta say Trisha, one of the leads, really got on my nerves and her acting seemed amateurish.

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MannyInNewYork
2011/03/08

Low budget - yes In all other areas - very, very good.Good acting, good and realistic dialogue and a genuine creepy vibe that most movies fail to capture. Some of this is due to the sparse, somber and slightly depressing sound track (the person that put the music together / scored this should get some notice). The characters really do seem like everyday people. - not the beautiful movie people but appealing and honest - like your family and friends. Their anxiety becomes the viewers. The plot is also something slightly different and vague enough to add some mystery without be too off the wall. I really liked this and I've seen it several times. There are more detailed reviews and rather than parrot the positive ones, I'd just say watch it, you will not be disappointed. It has a unique quality. Very good stuff here.

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Cyberknight Masao Kawata
2011/03/09

This film is about missing people. While there are several plausible explanations for most disappearances, there are a few that just sound too unnatural... So, what if some evil force is stalking, hiding itself where we can't look, like just behind the corners? And what a better corner is there to hide than on the edges of our limited three-dimensions (or four, if one wants to count in the time)? This is not a new story, with examples coming from the Asian dream-eaters to H.P. Lovecraft's inter-dimensional terrors and the contemporary cenobites, but amazingly, there are not many good pieces exploring this subject, at least, not on the horror shelves. There are many fantasies, like "Labyrinth" and "The NeverEnding Story", comedies, like "Ghostbusters" and "Beetlejuice", science fictions, like "Doctor Who" series and "Event Horizon", and even some thriller/dramas, like "The Adjustment Bureau". On the horror genre, there are films like "Phantasm" and "Poltergeist", the latter actually more entertaining than scaring, and a lot of not so successful ones, like the "Hellraiser" series, which carry some good new ideas, but doesn't manage to "raise hell".In "Absentia", the actors start cold, the first lines sounding very rehearsed and unconvincing, like people on reality shows pretending there are no cameras on them. As the film goes on, though, they gear up to a more steady pace.Shot using photographic cameras 5D Mark II and EOS Rebel T2i, "Absentia" isn't the kind of film meant to jump scare (although there are some), it's more on the psychological build up, what it does well. The short depth-of-field given by the cameras intensify the dramatic visions of "evil". The plot could be more elaborated, having a lot of drama filling in-between action scenes, making it less enjoyable for those looking for more scares.

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MisterWhiplash
2011/03/10

When looking at a movie like Absentia, execution is all. Some parts of it are not the most original; it seems like Mike Flanagan, the director (also of the rather good if imperfect Oculus), likes certain tropes from horror movies of old, such as a haunted place with a history (this house which is in a "Bad" neighborhood, nevermind what specifically it is, but in this case it's near a spooky and ominous tunnel that's been a place where people have gone missing for a century), and that scene where the cases that precede what's going on in the story are revealed. While in Absentia this happens at a point when we're already on our toes about what's to happen next, it feels familiar - maybe too familiar.I also might have liked Flanagan to delve a little more into the faiths of these women: one of them seems to be a committed Buddhist or other (the pregnant one Tricia, played by Courtney Bell, who sadly hasn't been in many films since this), and hits a gong in her bedroom and prays and... that's it, while the other sister, Callie (Catherine Parker) has a cross above her bed and is Christian. How do we know the latter? Because she is the one who decides when she sees a homeless/starving/desperate man in a tunnel (a nifty cameo by the great Doug Jones), she has to come back to give him some food. He manages to make it a trade for some keys and other things and... wait, what? So that's something I wish that wasn't just some moral bullet point that didn't mean much for one and was glossed over for another.But these are more-so nitpicks than full on complaints against what is an otherwise excellent independent horror film. Again, how much Flanagan pays attention to a) the quality of the performances of his actors - part of it is they aren't recognizable faces really (aside from the Jones cameo, and that's only for genre buffs), so the realism is firmer in place like this could be anywhere - and these women and even a potential walking cliché like the overweight detective-cum-boyfriend to Tricia (Levine) feels grounded and keeping the drama at a rather devastating pitch. And b) the horror, when it comes is mostly based in what we don't see, but the jump scares are not really the "jump" sort that schlock-meisters use when they're out of good ideas. This is more about the *creeping* horror, about something that seems sort of commonplace like a silver-fish bug that may be something... more, like something supernatural or mythical.You can tell it's made for a low budget - and I don't mean like those for Blumhouse productions, I'm talking 30 grand tops - and yet that's not really a hindrance per-say. The director and his crew are out to simply tell their story using what they have, and yet they use that for an advantage. There are hints of greater dangers that have taken away people like Tricia's boyfriend (or husband? unclear) for seven years, and when he reappears it's less about anything that's meant to make you jump than it is about the trauma that this man has been through, how he looks sitting in a room staring at a wall or when he sees that old tunnel and pees himself. That creates more atmosphere of dread and the elusive quality of the whatever the presence that terrifies the characters (more or less depending on the circumstances of the scenes) makes the drama palpable.In short, this is creative filmmaking on any budget, and if you can look at it more as a harrowing, heartbreaking drama about loss and what happens when redemption gets squashed or near impossible to attain (and maybe that's where the religion comes in, though it's not easy to see) than a straight out SCARE YA fest, then you will come away satisfied. It gets under your skin and, indulgences in some tropes et al, it's a solid showing of how to make you FEEL for the people on screen, which is often the toughest task when it comes to the cynical outpouring of horror films today.

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