Absentia – (2011) – movie review
This film had a great concept and a fantastic back-story. It was successful in crafting likable characters and realistic emotional situations. The dialogue was genuine and engaging. It set the tone of suspense early on with a few good scares. I was thinking this would be one great movie.
The problem with this film is – at some point the talking has to stop and the action has to start. This film plays more like a drama with some horror elements than a horror film. Halfway through the movie a said to myself, “Enough with the blah-blah-ing already,” and fast-forwarded through several long conversations without missing anything important to the story. Finally, the horror parts of the film came to the forefront but there just weren’t enough of them. The one music composition the filmmakers had for the film, a low synth-bed with a throbbing synth sound layered on top, worked well for the sad storyline at the beginning of the film but not for the scarier scenes. It got played-out by overuse and would have been much more effective if used sparingly. There is nothing wrong with silence in a film; a couple of well placed sound effects would have served better in many of the scenes. Unfortunately, Absentia started off great but I was very disappointed by the end of the film.
parlor of horror 