Totem (2017)

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Eldest daughter gets jealous when her dad brings a new woman into the family 5 years after her mother dies. Since she's moved in something supernatural is happening and it isn't friendly. The eldest daughter is very protective of her dead mother's necklace, but something else clings to it too and it trying to warn the family of danger. The ending has a nice twist to it. Worth waiting for. Loved this mystery/thriller.

This movie fooled me completely. I thought I knew where it was going and then it went someplace else and I was pleasantly surprised at being fooled, so that automatically makes this worth seeing.It isn't perfect, in fact there is one scene that makes no sense, although it is well done and shocking, and although our heroine's flat affect makes sense later, there does not seem to be any purpose to why what happened happened at all, so once again I miss those message boards so I could sound this out with other viewers. One thought is that the ghost did not want anything to give away its location? Rather harsh solution, and still makes no sense.Anyway, everything else comes together and ties up all the loose ends, including what initially appears to be bad acting, so you do need to see this and enjoy a bit more original take on the same old ghost story.

After he moves his new girlfriend in, a family finds a series of strange events occurring around them that convinces everyone something supernatural is plaguing the house and forces them to confront a deadly truth from their past in order to escape from the menace.This here turned out to be quite the decent enough offering. One of the more enjoyable features here is the fact that there's an incredibly strong and engaging central storyline at the heart of the film. The concept of the family unit, struggling after the weight of their mother's death and now having the new girlfriend moving in while they're clearly still adjusting to the loss is quite a fine starting point here, which is built upon here with the way this one slowly moves into the supernatural from this original setup. Basing the exploits around the house on the mother seeking revenge and not on the new woman coming into their lives which all manages to give this one a rather fun start here with the start of the supernatural coming into focus in the second half. These hauntings, ranging from the simple scenes of the ghostly figure wandering around in the background to the expected scenes of ghostly visions and flashes coming across which really gives this one quite a fun finale that comes across with all the rather enjoyable supernatural antics possible here with the with the arrival of the ghost and the full-on twist featured here that really inverts the whole rest of the film in a fine manner. That picks up the pace considerably with some absolutely fun confrontations that pack in the final half which really ends this on a high note. These here manage to hold this one up over it's few issues. The biggest problem with the film is the overall pacing, which is just rather harsh on this one. The opening drama here does take so long to get going with the drama- like feel of the material involving the adjustment to the new mother that interrupts the family dynamic to a large degree so this one has such a dour pace to start off with. That keeps the supernatural antics to a distressingly small portion of time overall here due to this buildup that it at times can feel like not even being a horror film for most of this section. Most of these are crammed into such a small section of the film that it really doesn't maintain that tone for a large portion of time and that really does hold this one down for the most part. That goes along with the last flaw here in that the film's attempts at jump-scares aren't all that impressive here as it dwells on a series of predictable scenes here, from cats jumping out of the darkness and the flash visions of the ghosts popping out of nowhere which really makes what happens quite redundant. Overall, though, it still has some decent moments though.Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

The actors did a great job from what I could tell. The director, Marcel Sarmiento, is well known for Deadgirl, which I have not seen but many where hopeful he would top. Although Marcel is credited for writing the story, the story and screenplay was written by Evan Dickson, of which it is Evan's first feature film.The movie starts off with an interesting premise and held my attention the first half. The cinematography is fine but later it becomes obvious they were working with a limited budget.Two-thirds into the movie things start to go awry and although the pace picks up I felt the story gets more unbelievable not just in decisions that are made but with distractions that make it obvious there might have been editing issues.The saving grace is there is a twist at the end that most people would not have seen coming but it was not enough for me to say it is a must see unless you are a fan of the actors or the director.