SEANCE MOVIE STILLS PLUS

But why? Stephanie Sy as Yvonne, Inanna Sarkis as Alice, Madisen Beaty as Bethany, Djouliet Amara as Rosalind, Suki Waterhouse as Camille, and Ella-Rae Smith as Helina in the horror SEANCE, an RLJE Films, and Shudder release. What’s awesome about this film, it’s much like Clue, because we don’t know the characters well and it could be anyone. Like most mystery horror thrillers, Seance, keeps the audience at the edge of their seat, wondering who the killer is and why they’re doing it. Sometimes trying to create that vibe doesn’t work, but for this film it did. In general, it had a very 90s edge to it, which I appreciated and loved. But before morning, one of the girls is dead, leaving the others wondering what they may have awakened.Īs I’ve mentioned before, this film reminded me of 1986’s Sorority House Massacre meets 1996’s The Craft. Soon after her arrival, six girls invite her to join them in a late-night ritual, calling forth the spirit of a dead former student who reportedly haunts their halls.

The Manitoba-shot feature is polished but undistinguished in all departments, including a synthy score credited to Sicker Man that’s so low on ideas, it finally settles on barely altering the main chord progression from Pachelbel’s “Canon in D.Camille Meadows is the new girl at the prestigious Edelvine Academy for Girls. Instead, it’s just OK in a very familiar, forgettable way. Nor is there enough energy to the preceding action for the movie to be bad in a fun way. The first signs “Seance” might not be taking itself seriously arrive too late, and as a result come off as over-the-top narrative missteps rather than playful subversions. But if screenwriter Barrett intended to partially send up the ’80s slashers he’s paying homage to, director Barrett failed to get that memo.

SEANCE MOVIE STILLS PLUS

Some of these aspects, plus the fact that a few of the competent lead actors are at least a decade too old for the age group they’re meant to represent, suggest possible satire. But even this crescendo kills its own buzz by dragging on too long, with a misfiring killer revelation reminiscent of the original “Scream” (in which it was supposed to be preposterous), then one of the more nonsensically out-of-nowhere lesbian kisses in recent celluloid memory. At least not until the climax, which boasts a couple decent twists as well as more graphic bodily harm. Rote jump scares aside, there’s little in the tepid atmospherics or by-the-numbers plotting to raise a viewer’s pulse. No matter how many classmates have gone missing, you can count on these paper-thin characters to blithely shower alone in a communal bathroom, practice a dance routine solo on a creepily lit stage, and so forth - decisions that play out exactly as you’d expect. Yet the murders mostly take place offscreen, any tension in their buildup dissipated by the clichéd situations depicted. Given how routine its premise is, and how suspense-killing the sluggish pace, it surprises that “Seance” doesn’t try to compensate with vivid violence. Then girls within the ruling clique begin disappearing, coming to a bad end one by one at the hands of a masked figure. The results, however, seem to surprise everyone. Camille and the nice classmate who’s befriended her, Helina ( Ella-Rae Smith), figure this will prove another prank, but decide to play along. It is again the mean girls’ idea to hold a seance in order to ask Kerrie’s spirit what happened to her. Landry (Marina Stephenson Kerr), whose cute handyman son Trevor (Seamus Patterson) is the lone male hereabouts. The ensuing fracas attracts detention punishment for all from imperious headmistress Mr.

When bullying Alice and company attempt to put the newbie in her place, they get considerably more pushback than they’re used to. Suspiciously curious about that matter is Camille ( Suki Waterhouse), a wait-list candidate whom Kerrie’s demise provides late-enrollment space for. Still, it doesn’t seem to have been in the plan that Kerrie should shortly wind up dead in a questionable “accident.” Is there some supernatural force at work after all? Thus it seems clear that when some of the current reigning mean girls led by Alice (Inanna Sarkis) attempt to invoke the rumored in-house ghost - a former resident who committed suicide - what they’re really doing is playing yet another mean prank on one of their designated inferiors, Kerrie (Megan Best). At the remote, imposing, gated Edelvine Academy, a very exclusive girls’ boarding school, vindictive elitism seems baked into the small student body’s social hierarchy.

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