Sunday, October 5, 2014

Short Attnetion Span Review - The Haunting of Helena (2012) - With Toothless Spoilers

I watched this movie for two reasons. One, it is on Netflix streaming. Two, because of this image:

Pretty creepy, right? Well, that's about the only thing that works in this boring film. The movie deals with a ghost of a woman who liked to eat people and lives in a swamp drained by Benito Mussolini. Or something like that. The film is terribly plotted and acted. Character motivation is lacking and each actor seems to be competing with the others in a race to see who can be the most disinterested in their role. The film has a grey, washed out look. In some films, this can be moody; in this film, it only serves to heighten the tedium. While I will give it a point for the ending - spoiler: the mom fails to save her daughter from the hungry ghost - that's about the only thing that was original or noteworthy. A tired retread of better stories, told with no flair and weighed down by a boring cast, The Haunting of Helena isn't worth anyone's time.

Oh, a note to filmmakers: mosquitoes are not scarey. The ghost somehow controls the little blood suckers and uses them to kill people. This looks silly on the screen and gives our monster an obvious weakness to Off! Deep Woods. The only way to make them a menace (other than by infecting them with malaria) is to make them big a rubbery, like this monster from Mosquito:

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