The Dead Will Tell (2004)

The Worst Film Ever

Fresh and Exciting

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

After receiving an antique engagement ring from her fiancée, a woman's visions of a ghost following her lead her to discover a startling secret about the past and its rightful owner and races to put an end to the haunting.This was quite an enjoyable and interesting Lifetime Channel effort. This one manages to get a lot right here detailing the ghostly activity, which is first given quite a nice build-up here of the visions and encounters around town before going into the thumping footsteps in the different floors, controlling the atmosphere around her or fixating on the TV shows from the 60s that sets this one up quite nicely. These here are enough to work a fine atmosphere here when this one manages to bring about quite thrilling ghostly encounters are brought along early in here which makes for a really quick, breezy pace throughout here. That the first encounter, seeing her out on the streets just after the engagement comes about is nicely due to the quick time here, a later scene in her house where she follows the watery footprints to the window where she has a great encounter that turns out to be the film's highlight scene, another one of the car going out of control on the streets and a rather impressive series of scenes at the ruined studio which comes off rather well here in making the supernatural action work here. As well, the finale is really enjoyable here with the modern-day action nicely mirroring the flashback revelation of the actual crime as there's some rather fun times trapping her there and the stalking makes for quite a fun time. These here are helped along by the other big point here in the actual mystery which comes across rather well as the start with the appearing ghost following her, showing up in photographs and finally interacting among her life which spurs the discovery of the connection to the past by putting it all together and getting some rather suspenseful times here. These are enough to hold off the few small flaws in this one. The biggest issue to this one is the rather downbeat investigation of the actual mystery which tends to offer up an engrossing angle but is badly executed. There's little interest here in how the murder gets solved since it tends to run through the usual manner of spotlighting scenes mainly as a way to give her screen-time which is a big channel requirement. It's not as though the scene are all that bad but are just not filled with any kind of supernatural attacks or even ghostly activities throughout here, replaced mainly with scenes of her crying out for others or being tormented by the case which really lowers the amount of time here on the horror. It easily could've infused a few more encounters along the way to help out in that regard and still keep the same results which is what makes this a little disappointing. The only other flaw to this one is the rather lame story here that follows many of those elements simply to show that, from the family hospitality to her and the attitude of the cop that's all rather cliché enough to give this that familiar feel without doing anything else for it. Otherwise, this one was rather fun.Rated Unrated/PG-13: Violence and Language.

***SPOILERS*** It's when young New Orleans attorney Emily Parker, Anne Heche, got an engagement ring from her soon to be husband, whom she only knew for about a month, Billy Boy Hytner, Jonathan Lapagila, that the dead or murdered of long ago were suddenly awakened. It wasn't long that Emily started seeing things in the form of this ghost-like woman who started making ghostly appearances only to her everywhere she went! As it turned out it was the engagement ring that was the reason behind all these strange events in Emily's life. That together with Emily having been institutionalized at an early age, after her parents were tragically killed in a car accident, which somehow had her become psychic because of her mental illness and be able to pick up vibrations as well as images of dead people!As Emily gets clues from her contact from the world beyond she soon finds out that the person is the disembodied sprite of Marie Slanger, Leigh Jones, who disappeared back in 1969 with only her ring finger and engagement ring being recovered in the woods by a teenage couple who were, this at the hight of the free love era, busy making out! The biggest surprise comes much later when Emily in uncovering a photo of her future mother-in-law the boozy, and she is for a good reason, Beth Hytner, Kathleen Quinlan, which has her and Marie Salnger in it!Emily following the clues that the ghostly Marie is giving her tracks down her former lover the former flower and love child, now in his early 60's, Paul Hamlin, Chris Sarandon, who was the prime suspect in her death or disappearance! Having been let off the hook by a jury because of lack of evidence Paul has lived with the suspicion by everyone involved in his murder case that he got a lucky break in that Marie's body was never found.***MAJOR SPOILERS*** It when Emily sees the reclusive Paul that she realizes there's a reason that Marie's ghost guided her to him. It was through Paul that Emily connected the dead Marie to her fiancée's parents! In fact it was Billy Boy's old man John Hytner, David Andrews, who was getting it on hot and heavy with Marie back in the late 1960's just before she disappeared! Something that Mr.Hytner's old lady Beth knew about and was the reason for her having hit the bottle ever since!Pretty good made for TV movie with an outstanding performance by Anne Heche good enough for her to have gotten an Academedy Award nomination, if the film was theatrically released, as Emily Parker the girl with the sixth sense! The ability to see dead people! The only thing about the film that let it down a notch or two was the what looked like 30 or so year-old Billy Boy Hytner parents John & Beth Hytner! They were so young looking that you could have easily mistaken them for Billy Boy's brother and sister instead of his mom and dad!

In New Orleans, the lawyer Emily Parker (Anne Heche) meets the handsome Billy Hytner (Jonathan LaPaglia) by chance; they date and fall immediately in love for each other. One month later, Billy proposes her and gives an engagement ring he bought in an antiquary shop. From this moment on, Emily has visions of a weird woman and she decides to investigate about the previous owner of the antique ring. She discovers that the woman that is haunting her is Marie Salinger (Leigh Jones), who disappeared in 1969, and the police had found only her severed finger with the ring. Her fiancé Paul Hamlin (Chris Sarandon) was accused of the murder but considered not-guilty by the jury. Meanwhile, Emily meets Billy's parents and is not accepted by her future mother-in-law Beth Hytner (Kathleen Quinlan). Emily continues to investigate the murder, disclosing the truth about Marie's death."The Dead Will Tell" is a simple, but attractive ghost story. The cast is excellent, and Anne Heche is very beautiful in the role of a woman obsessed for the truth. This low-budget television movie has a good screenplay, nice locations, very few special effects and I liked this romantic supernatural story. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Quando os Mortos Falam" ("When the Dead Speak")

Enjoyed this film and its location in New Orleans, Louisiana, with its historic old buildings, old homes and their antique furnishings. This film deals mainly with the spiritual world and a lost soul who is trying to communicate with a young girl, Kate Jennings Grant(Claire) and also manages to involve her boyfriend, Michael Arata. If a person's life is cut short, the spirit needs to advance to a higher spiritual level and this poor soul was definitely not Resting in Peace and caused all kinds of problems for everyone! If you like films dealing with Ghosts and the supernatural, this is the film for you, and especially around Halloween! ENJOY