morrison-dylan-fan Whilst waiting to find out if anything else would come from Mike Flanagan after Oculas, I read a review by Kim Newman highly praising the release of Flanagan's first (non-student or short) feature Horror movie,which led to me making a note of the title for a special viewing. Knocked out by Flanagan confirming himself as an auteur with the hat trick of Before I wake,Hush and Ouija: Origin of Sin,and coming up to my 1,500th review,I decided to stop being absent for Absentia.The plot:After holding onto hope for seven years that her husband Daniel will re-appear, Tricia Riley gets his death certificate signed in absentia. While Daniel's been missing, Tricia has gotten with Det. Ryan Mallory and is now seven months pregnant. Living on her own,Tricia welcomes back her sister Callie. Going for a jog whilst Tricia reports of seeing Daniel's "ghost",Callie jogs to a tunnel near their home,and finds a path to the "ghost" of Daniel.View on the film:Working on a very low budget, (1/3rd of which was crowdfunded) editor/writer/directing auteur Mike Flanagan shows a remarkable confidence in making the origins of the overarching themes across his credits feel established. Giving the future Oculas mirror a cameo, Flanagan makes his first visit to a suburban home one where the walls shake,as Flanagan & Oculas cinematographer Rustin Cerveny pull the scenes at home (shot in Flanagan's own house) with an extended eerie silence, that shatters as Callie and Tricia find someone (or something) else in the house. Whilst not able to roll out his highly stylised tracking shots, Flanagan keeps the chilling mood alight with scratched faces, (a major visual motif in his future work) crystal blue lighting, and a keen ear for sliver of sounds coming out of the tunnel.Appearing five years after he had made anything, (2006's short Oculus: Chapter 3 - The Man with the Plan) the screenplay by Flanagan has an impressive freshness,as the casual exchanges between Tricia and Callie highlight the major themes which has since driven all his work,from a fractured family unit grieving over a loss, to an unseen historical evil, secretly festering in the heart of the town. Proudly making Absentia its own thing, Flanagan gives the tale a large dollop of dark Fantasy, as the unseen creature slithers around and tunnels into a mysterious, unhappy ending.Joined by Flanagan family member James as an on-edge Jamie Lambert, Courtney Bell (who would join co-star Dave Levine in Oculas,and also appear in Before I wake) gives a gripping performance as Tricia,who along with expressing the care she has for Callie,is also given a calculating side by Bell over finding out the secrets of the tunnel. Filmed whilst she was seven months pregnant with her and now ex- boyfriend Flanagan's child, Catherine Parker gives an excellent performance as Callie,with Parker making Callie scream in desperation for a rational solution,as Callie and Tricia look down the tunnel to absentia.

rageinblack I feel confused, usually, I have nothing against low budget movies and I've seen some outstanding ones, but this one failed to catch a level of greatness in my eyes. Partly also because of the hype that the reviews here created, I thought I was in for a hidden gem...I liked the concept of the story, it was intriguing to a degree, yes, but the movie lacked in the execution and to me, it was pretty boring... the dialogues, the pace of events and even the music... They could've made indeed a much more entertaining movie out of it, that's for sure.

jeremywtfbbqsauce Let me start off by saying that I thoroughly a majority of this film. Created on a low budget, they had some good acting, the music set the tone perfectly for just about every scene and it has a few decent jump scares.Now for the bad stuff: The ending. The final scene leaves MUCH to be desired and leaves you feeling extremely unfulfilled and with many questions left without answers. Now I suppose you could say this was the intent of the writers to leave you feeling like this as it is also how characters feel at times during the movie, but I say it's just poor writing.

Cyberknight Masao Kawata 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.