Trespassing (2004)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Beautiful, moving film.

Admirable film.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The storyline says the curse began on a plantation where an evil madame practiced experiments on her slaves. Further than that, she was discovered as a witch because her cook was chained to the stove and started a fire. The fire department came to help and discovered a room where they found some slaves dead, some alive, and some not even recognized as human anymore.Here is where my spoiler alert ends, and a little knowledge is dropped on you. For the less educated, who simply say this is another chainsaw massacre, jeepers creepers, or "done to death" teen slasher, I'd like to say that I mean no offense in the "less educated" comment. It is actually true, only because I have studied the case of Madame Delphine LaLaurie of the New Orleans French Quarter. You haven't studied her or her sadistic behaviors, so you would never know that this film is actually based on a real person and real events.Madame LaLaurie's parents were killed by slaves in the Haiti Revolution, she married 3 times, had 2 daughters, and her last husband was a doctor. She was THE aristocratic woman to be in the 18oos, but disdained her slaves. She murdered many, and buried them in the floors and walls of her home, as well as tossed them down the well in their courtyard.Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau, taught her voodoo. She then branched out as a Satan worshiper. When the cook set fire to the home, she was chained to the stove. She did so because her grandson was being sent to the attic, where no slave ever returned.Madame would try to practice sex changes on her slaves, would scramble their brains with iron rods, break there bones and reset them to look like sea creatures and then jam them in cages for medium sized dogs, peel their skin back to watch stages of infection, sew mouths shut with fecal matter packed inside, sew body parts of slaves to other slaves, and more... all while the slaves would be alive.She did all of this with the help of her henchman, Sebastian, who was a slave who was also her lover, and kept his rank by doing harm to others for her pleasure. When she was discovered as a monster after the fire, they took off in her carriage across lake Pontchartrain. They were never heard from again, and there is no agreed upon proof of whether she returned to France, died across the lake, or any sort of outcome. Legend says she still practiced her dark magic across the lake, had followers, and lived her days out there. There are still people who go to practice along the lake banks, and make sacrifices to Madame, who was believed a witch.

"Evil Remains" is a mediocre slasher film.**SPOILERS**Twenty years after a massacre, a haunted plantation has become a figure in New Orleans urban mythology. Psychology student Mark, (Daniel Gillies) and friends Tyler, (Clayne Crawford) Eric, (Jeff Bryan Davis) Kristy Goodman, (Estella Warren) and Sharon, (Ashley Scott) are anxious to know the truth behind the legend, and decide to investigate the truth behind it. As the surroundings start to take their toll on the group and the house begins to creep them out, they start to fall prey to a mysterious killer. Deciding that escape is better, the remaining friends try to leave the house alive.The Good News: There is some rather decent moments in here. There are some scenes in here that are quite inventive and very well-constructed. The attic sequence is especially nice, as a series of unknown banging upstairs, and upon ascending into the dusty, lowly-lit attic and discover the eviscerated corpse of one of their friends. Moments later, one of them is killed by a booby trap and stumbles into a wall and nails themselves in the head. The deaths themselves aren't half bad and do have some nice gore to them. One is killed with hedge-clippers to the head, another has their throat slit, there's a violent impaling and another is run over by a truck, leaving this satisfactory in the gore factor. There's also some very long and quite exhilarating chase scenes in here that are a joy to watch, and elevate this one a little further. It's not that bad.The Bad News: This had a lot of potential to be good, and when it's on it's great, but when it's not, there's a lot to dislike here. The main reason for this is that it's one of the talkier slashers ever. The film seems determined to spend all of its time with actors sitting around, standing around, or driving around chatting aimlessly about random subjects. Nearly everything significant that happens in here is repeatedly and endlessly talked about in here. After seeing a similar scene for the fifth consecutive scene, it begins to wear on and it doesn't stop. That is what harms the movie the most, with nearly the first hour of the film covered by this type of action. You can tell that the plot wants to go more into the horror territory every now and then, but it's stuck in the cyclical exposition until the end, making it a slow film to get through.The Final Verdict: With some great moments spread throughout that make it an entertaining film, but it's ultimately hurt by the fact that nearly everything is talked to death in the film. It's not that bad of a film, so if it sounds like fun, give it a shot. You could do a lot worse than this one.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language

A friend rented this movie, and he liked it so much he wants to get his own copy now. He had me watch the rental. I don't understand what he liked about it! I'm going to have to ask him.In an opening scene set twenty years in the past, as I recall, a couple is concerned about their son, who's killed a dog. I think. They both get killed by someone in a mask before the opening credits begin. Maryam D'Abo plays the mother, and does a convincing accent, assuming she's not dubbed. This scene, apart from the father wandering around a lot in his underwear, and talking talking talking, wasn't terribly bad.However, after that it's a heck of a lot more talking. In a scene with Kurtwood Smith and one of the twentysomethings, they have a conversation in which the scene continually cuts between two static one-shots. How about a different angle, or a two shot, or something to break up the monotony?A bunch of unsympathetic twentysomethings go out to the house from the opening. It's surrounded with a lot of animal traps. It's dark inside and the camera jerks around a lot. They talk a lot. People get killed, though you can barely see them. The end.Even this director's Witchcraft IV, a pretty unmemorable movie in a generally pretty poor series, was better than this.

This movie is great. I really wish this didn't go straight to DVD because even though I now own it and can watch it over and over again I think that the movie would have done pretty well in theaters. I think that all the stars of this movie deserve the money from theaters seeing as how great of a job they did in this flick. Estella Warren is really the only one I think that doesn't put on a great performance.Daniel Gillies puts on an awesome performance as Mark, Clayne Crawford puts on a brilliant performance as Tyler and Ashley Scott is more brilliant than ever having her role down perfectly and easily steals the show.The killer who wears a mask made out a dogs head looks kind of cool, but not that frightening. Overall though the kills more than make up for it and the atmosphere or the movie is brilliant. I highly suggest anyone of the horror genre to go and pick this up asap.The Ending is really good as well. This is something all horror fans should enjoy.