The Unspoken (2015)

ridiculous rating

Am I Missing Something?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

There's something wrong with the house in the woods down on Briar Lane. Years after a family disappears from the house in the '70's the boards are being pried off the windows and the doors are being unlocked as a new tenant is moving in. A young mother, Jeanie (Hutton), and her mute son have escaped the city and their traumas there. After his father passed away Adrian stopped speaking and hopefully, the change of pace and scenery will help him out of this fugue. With them comes a nurse and housekeeper, Portia (Rukiya Bernard), and from the town, they hire Angela (Ferland), a part-time confidant for Adrian. However, no sooner than they've opened the doors to the house that strange things begin to happen.I really do like this new and refreshingly well thought out take on the Haunted House subgenre of horror. The story is well structured and full of interesting characters. However, it would have been nice to have a few more scenes between Father and Daughter in respect to Angela's character as this would not only have strengthened and filled her out more but would have added a better depth to the story. It also would have added more power to climax when Angela's dad (Munro) comes to save her.The director does a wonderful job of creating the scene of a town/village which has seen better days. This is great as it adds to the believability and reality of the story. People have problems and they are doing their best to survive... everything isn't rosy. I also have to give credit for the opening sequence which throws the audience straight into the action and sets the scene, pace, and atmosphere for the rest of the movie.With all the horror films out and about that stomp over well-worn scenarios, it's refreshing to have a twist. It's also nice to have a decent director filming - all too often the direction itself is one of the major things to harm a film (contrary to belief not everyone can make a good horror film).As for the acting, it's well above par and the portrayals only add to the power of the film. One of the best is Adrian (Suljic), though he doesn't say a word, he definitely has a presence throughout the whole film.I would recommend this to all lovers of the horror genre and to those wishing to try something out of the field. It's not the best but it's a great deal better than most in the genre and well worth a viewing... or two...

The film opens showing us unusual events/killings in a home with the family disappearing afterwards. It jumps 17 years later as Ms. Peterson (Pascale Hutton) and her mute son Adrian (Sunny Suljic) move into the place. Everyone thinks they are crazy and Angela (Jodelle Ferland) agrees to help tend for the child as things then happen. Some teens have been stowing their stash in the basement to create more victims.This is your basic haunted house killing people tale. Unlike other films, the opening sequence offers zero clues as to what is going on. What is the history? Why is this house haunted? Who were the former residence? Zip, nada, none. It isn't until the film is about to run the credits do you get the explanation, one that caught me off guard. It was unique. I liked it. It made something interesting of a mediocre production. I liked the film, but it appears most people didn't.Guide: No sex or nudity. I don't recall any swearing.

I really liked this movie, not sure why there are so many bad reviews. OK, it's not along the lines of James Wan's films but I still found it scary. There were a couple of unexplained moments. Why was Angela holding the knife when the cops showed up? What was up with the lesbian kiss? The rest I found enjoyable and the acting was decent. There was enough scary moments to make up for it's weaker points.

"The Unspoken" is another horror (yawn) movie about, well, ghosts (I guess). It has an overall effect of cold mush okra. It is so hackneyed, so predictable, so non-scary it should be used as an example in an undergraduate course on how to bore an audience instead of scaring them.It opens with a story of what would become legend "The Briar House." It seems that an entire family vanished from the face of the earth never to be heard from again. If my thinking serves me correctly, I would say the cat scared them. Watch this movie, and you'll get the connection.Anyhoo, flash forward to the present, and a single mother and mute son move into the house. Immediately, things begin to go bump in the night. Angela is then introduced as the movie's protagonist. She is played by Jodelle Ferland ("Silent Hill" and "Case 39"). Nearly every word she utters is barely above a whisper, yet she manages to bond with the mute boy. Along the way, however, she is tormented by some local thugs--right out of the Hardy Boys High School--and tries to have a faux lesbian relationship with some boyish girl. The boys need to get back in the house to get their "stash" (I'm sure it was a limitless end of Lego blocks), but I digress.This movie was just plain bad. And the completely unbelievable ending left me stupefied. As in many other movies of this genre, it was as if the writer, director, and producer sat down and said, "Okay; I have NO idea how to end this, so let's just do this." Rated "R" for violence and language.