Bloodtype Online

    A man decides to move his family from the city to a country home that he has inherited from his uncle.  While this disturbs his family they all pack up their possessions and move to the country.  Almost as soon as they arrive strange things begin happening in the old home.  Their youngest son hears people moving around the house and the wife sees a man lurking about outside whom always manages to mysteriously disappear.  With the exception of the parishes new young priest and a couple of “educated” towns people no one will have anything to do with them.  Eventually the family finds out that one of their ancestors was responsible for the brutal murder of an entire family while the husband was away and the legend says that his spirit haunts their lands looking for revenge.  After the man’s college age son begins acting strange and inappropriate towards his sister they realize that there just might be something to the legend and call upon their few friends for help.  This leads to an attempted exorcism and eventual conflict with the tortured spirit.   

    This movie comes so close to being a great film that it is frustrating for me to even sit down and write this review.  The story is somewhat formulaic, but then how many ways can you really tell a ghost story?  I do want to give credit for the inclusion of the exorcism and possession storyline.  This isn’t something that I normally see in a traditional ghost story and was a cool twist.  But in spite of this interesting twist the movie is far too slow.  There are some very creepy scenes that help build the tension, but these are buried in between dialogue heavy exchanges, which destroy the pacing of the movie, and ruin any tension that they have managed to build.  Towards the end of the film the pace really picks up and we are treated to a couple of really intense scenes.  But the last 15 minutes of the movie was ruined by a terrible confusing ending that left me unsatisfied.  The performances from the cast are good.  None of the actors stand out as being particularly good, but they are all solid.   

    One of the things that really grabbed me early on with the movie is how great it looks.  All of the colors are a bit washed out and bland.  The interior shots are light to accentuate the shadows and give a very creepy feeling.  Both of these decisions go a long way towards helping build an atmosphere and tension.  Though at times it appears that they are so in love with the visuals that they linger on them too long, and again slow the film down.  The special effects in this movie are limited.  There is just a bit of non-intrusive CGI in a couple of scenes with the ghosts.   

    Bottom line here is that the movie has it’s moments when it is superbly creepy and frightening.  But these moments are buried by a very slow story.  Unless you are a hard-core ghost movie enthusiast I would recommend passing on this one.