Simply A Masterpiece

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!The story could have been told so much better. The manner in which it was presented was difficult to follow and it lacked continuity. Even the geography of it was a stretch! Michelle, the college student is attending the University of MN. She is wearing short shorts with mega high heels.....sorry... MN college students don't dress that way! And later on in the movie when talking with some new friends, she says that it is cold here.... well then put some clothes on! This is just one example of the inconsistencies of the story line. The conflict surrounding the title of the house in which Michelle is staying is brought into the plot way too late in the movie. This conflict is the supposed reason for the house being "haunted". Sure would have been nice to know that sooner. The acting was marginal at best. Only a few characters actually seemed comfortable with their lines, Aunt Jessie and Michelle to name a couple. When Michelle is first shown to her room in the house, one is led up a series of staircases, presumably to the third floor of the house. In later scenes, the room appears to be on the first floor (look out the window!) Just too many inconsistencies to make this film believable.Now, onto the photography itself, mostly done well. I especially liked the one scene where "Angelica" is a wise old woman who knows about "spiritual things" and is photographed entirely in close-up.... you see her profile and lips moving, taking up almost all of the screen. For me, that seemed to help personify her as "evil" and scary.The music! The music in this movie was great! It kept pace with the movie. In fact, it tried to keep us informed as to where we were geographically: house, basement, hospital, Michelle's parents' house in DC.....etc....... even some Russian influenced music for the Russian's party near the end of the movie. Music was very well done, and the only reason I rated this a 4! I think part of the problem with this movie is that most of continuity and presumably the very scary parts were left on the editing room floor (not literally, because I know it is digital, but that is a much better visual!). Overall, this movie was not scary,mostly confusing, and didn't haunt me at all.

. . . of the world's OTHER leading "holy book" was offered in counterpoint to the Churchploitation mess arbitrarily labeled MATTHEW 18. The producers of MATTHEW 18 brazenly flash two gospel verses on-screen as this ragged wreck begins, apparently believing that their target audience is incapable of actually reading this much at one sitting. However, any SOBER audience members who stick out this textbook case of bad film making to its bitter end will realize that what story there is has NOTHING to do with this Bible passage. Maybe the MATTHEW 18 crew harbored a delusional belief that they could outdo Charles Manson and spark an outbreak of "Helter Skelter" by attracting a mixed crowd half Fundamentalist (with their Biblical title) and half Gameboy (with their gratuitously random insertion of two dozen F-bombs and perverse sexual allusions to "earn" their "R" rating). The only spooky thing about this flick is that 95% of the actors' line readings are atrociously insincere sounding. It's as if the crew intentionally threw their mostly unknown cast off whatever "game" they had through the use of bad make-up application and tawdry costuming, and then filmed them (as they felt like total buffoons) during their FIRST read through of the script, using THAT as the movie's final cut! How else to explain all the garbled inflections, implying that none of the film's characters had the least idea of what their lines MEANT? This flick is incoherent in both plot and tone. Boo!