Absentia

Plot synopsis:
As the film begins we see Tricia removing old posters and replacing them with new ones. When she comes home, she finds that her younger sister Callie has arrived. She comes to live with her as the pressure mounts to finally declare Tricia's husband, who has been missing for seven years, 'dead in absentia.' Tricia is pregnant, but refuses to tell her sister who the father is. Tricia and Callie talk about Callie's road to recovery, as she has been addicted to drugs for quite some time.Tricia is reluctant to declare her husband dead, always holding out hope, but Callie is practical and wants her to move on. Detective Mallory helps Tricia to fill out the paperwork and she and her sister visit a lawyer to get the ball rolling.Callie likes to take a run and takes a tunnel which leads to the park. On one of her runs, she sees a man lying in the tunnel. He asks if she can see him and tells her his name is Walter. Callie promises to bring him some food later on, which she does, only to find the man has mysteriously vanished. She leave the food by the entrance of the tunnel, only to find that when she returns home, she has received a mysterious gift of keys, earrings and all kinds of small change. She tries to take it back to the tunnel, but the small pile keeps appearing in her house.As Tricia comes to terms with her husband being declared death, she starts to move on with her life, finding a new apartment with Callies help, and cleaning out her husbands clothes. She even agrees to go on a date with Detective Mallory, who says to Callie he's been trying to get her to go out with him for some time. As the leave for their date, Tricia sees her dead husband standing on the street. As she has had numerous hallucinations of her husband before, she ignores him, only to be overwhelmed as Det. Mallory sees him as well and calls to Tricia to call an ambulance.Daniel, Tricia's husband, is being examined at the hospital, but is unable or unwilling to provide any information about where he's been. When they take him home at the later time, the site of the tunnel causes him to pee himself. He later tells Callie she shouldn't have traded with it, but gives no information about what it is. Callie an Daniel hear strange sounds coming from the bathroom and when Callie goes to check it out, she's hit on the head and blacks out for a second. When she comes to, Daniel is being dragged out of the room and down the stairs. Callie follows and sees impressions of his hands and body in the ceiling above her. Daniel then falls out of the ceiling and is dragged outside. Callie tries to follow him only to see him being captured by an insect like creature, who drags him into the wall of the tunnel.She tells all this to her sister and the two detectives, but they refuse to believe her and think she is under the influence of something. Later when Tricia and Callie are alone, Tricia searches Callie's room and finds a small box with drugs in them. When Tricia leaves, Callie goes online to research missing people in tunnels. She finds that there have been at least 20 people which have gone missing from the neighborhood over the last 50 years.She shows her findings to Tricia, who has a hard time believing this could be something supernatural as reality is often as simple as it is. Later a detective comes to the door, asking if Callie could identify a body. It turns out Walter has turned up dead. Walters son, who has been trading with the force in the walls as well, goes insane when he sees his dad.A while later Tricia and Callie are home again and have just turned out the lights to go to bed. They here a noise coming from the darkness of the living room and Tricia peers to see what's happening. Callie sees her being dragged out the door towards the tunnel. She tries her best to hold on to Tricia, but when their fingers slip, Tricia is being dragged into the darkness of the tunnel.After relating this story to the detectives, who don't believe her, she goes home. She prints out all of her research and puts it in an enveloppe, addressed to det. Mallory. She then goes to the tunnel, demanding a trade. The walls around her come alive with screaming men and women and hands are being pressed into the concrete from the inside out. She tries to run out of the tunnel only to be snatched at the last minute, leaving only a sneaker behind.The detectives find her research and her shoe, but don't give much credit to the story. They think up other courses of action which have Tricia and Callie leaving apart or together, to live off the grid. Detective Mallory is hanging missing posters in the neighborhood, when he sees a female figure standing at the entrance of the tunnel. When he approaches the tunnel however, there is no one to been seen. As he is walking away, we see a female figure looking through a haze at the disappearing detective, as a bug moves its paws on her shoulder.

Tags: fantasy

Review:
This somber yet deeply unsettling film managed to give me the willies even in the less-than-ideal Horrorhound Weekend screening.Not soon after a pregnant woman (Katie Parker) declares her missing husband (Morgan Peter Brown) legally dead, she begins to having terrifying visions that hint that maybe she spoke too quickly.
When I simply think about the title, I hear in my head its stark, two-note funeral organ score and my chest wells up with emotions not usually incurred by watching a horror movie: grief, loss and perhaps the most terrifying of allthe dread of inevitability.Toss in a pitch perfect cast, including a heart-wrenching cameo from the always delicious Doug Jones, and BOOM!
every aspect of it from the story, acting right through to a wonderful soundtrack guarantees you will have a great time with it.I'm hoping that the director, Mike Flanagan gets noticed in a big way as a result of Absentia and someone throws him a team and a budget.
I am very pleasantly surprised and think it certainly belongs to one of the best horror movies of 2011.The only bad thing I have to say about it is that a few times I found it hard to follow the dialogue (mumbling) and had to rewind to listen to it again.
Hopefully the director will continue the good work on his next film, from the decent way the characters were written and top notch direction (for what I guess was a small budget)this is a truly excellent movie.
Not your "slasher" flicks though but well crafted Gothic horror like Robert Wise's original THE HAUNTING.Creepy atmospheric films that get you thinking and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
(http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945387/)The low budget only proves that a cool story, some nice direction, well paced editing and a more than capable cast don't need to come from a big Hollywood studio and they rarely do these days!
Mike Flanagan's first horror feature is an effective psychological thriller, packed with surprising moments, good performances and clever scares..
Summary: Mike Flanagan's first horror feature is an effective psychological thriller, packed with surprising moments, good performances and clever scares.
The year has just started, but if the past years have taught me anything, it is that great movies are rare.The movie takes its time to explain the background story to you early in the movie by having our lead character, Tricia, put up missing person posters.
Unlike most supernatural / psychological horror movies out there this works strictly with the atmosphere, the story, the mood and the emotions, and it couldn't possibly do a better job.
But it gives the scares a more subtle tone which helps building the atmosphere yet again, so it's really a double-edged sword."Absentia" is an important movie, it shows what good thinking can do compared to good effects.
They've been cheated out of the explicit, exploitative B-horror film the art sells, and instead are given a thoughtful, meditative, quiet, slow-burn of a supernatural drama that is an inspiring example of no-budget, independent filmmaking that seems entirely wasted on some viewers.
I never would have picked it up based on the covert art, and imagine the type of viewer that would will certainly have a hard time.The story is simple and understated - a young woman is coming to terms with finally declaring her missing husband dead.
Big fan of horror films and I'm absolutely not a credible person to critique any movie with confidence; but the only reason I watched the entire length was for the hope that Something!
I will say that I do have hope for the future films Of mike Flanagan, I believe this movie could have been better with a larger budget and the premise was great, it just never really pulled me into to the storyline or the characters..
Good idea, I can dig it, but missed the mark completely, there are way too many unanswered questions and parts of the movie that just don't make sense and with no elaboration on the many of the minor themes, you're just confused and bothered that you just wasted a short 80 minutes.At one point they mention atoms and how everything is just space and then change the subject after like 30 seconds.
If your idea of a good horror movie is watching 90 minutes of murder and/or cruelty then you will absolutely hate this.
The script even takes the risk of presenting multiple audience-identification characters among its leads, which in less careful hands could run the risk of alienating viewers used to having a single, simple narrative point of view, but the differing perspectives - psychological and emotional - of the two leads are well-balanced and complementary.There are a couple of effective jump scares early on, but, as the story progresses, the thrust moves entirely to the slow burn, with the carefully maintained atmosphere and psychological implications of the scenario serving as the locus of the horror..
She returns later that night to bring him food, a gift that sets in motion a dark and surprising series of events.The acting in this film is subtle, the relationships between the characters both believable and engaging as new secrets and twists are revealed, and the quiet little neighborhood takes on a satisfyingly sinister cast as things start to deteriorate between the sisters and Tricia's newfound peace of mind.Less smooth is the last 1/3 of the story- I am still in the dark about WHAT it was exactly that caused Daniel's disappearance and why his warnings to his family and the police go un-deciphered.
Together, they discover that missing doesn't necessarily mean dead, and that being dead isn't necessarily the worst thing that could happen in this taut and compelling horror film.Absentia is a low-budget, independent film that needs no apologies.
Usually when you hear the phrase 'indie horror film' you automatically think 'Oh, crap – another low-budget slasher movie.' Well, at least I do, but that's just me.
But when I saw Mike Flanagan's intelligent, well-scripted and very scary film ABSENTIA I was willing to forget everything I had anticipated and more.This tale of two sisters, one of whom is about to declare her 7-years-missing husband 'dead in absentia', is a real find – a film that genuinely scares without the addition of oodles of gore and screaming.Flanagan's script is tight, well-controlled and multi-layered, and with the addition of crisp editing and a very talented cast creates an atmosphere of dread.
With ABSENTIA, the audience is allowed to feel, to think and to react without anyone else telling them how to do so.The cast is uniformly terrific, especially the two leads, Katie Parker and Courtney Bell as the sisters, who add great humanity and chemistry to the film.
But still, it was quite nice.The story is about Tricia Riley (played by Courtney Bell) whose husband Daniel Riley (played by Morgan Peter Brown) has been missing for seven years, and now ready to have the death certificate issued and brought the case to a closure, something unexpected happens...The movie is slow paced, but that actually works out well enough in favor of the movie, as it helps to build the setting and set up the mood for the entire story.
The director, Mike Flanagan, is great at adding little bits to the story while building up a good sense of mystery and dread, and at the same time leaving almost everything up to the imagination of the viewer."Absentia" was really brought to life on the screen by the people they had cast for the various roles.
So despite it being a smaller budget movie, the end result was far better than what I had expected.If you like movies that are thick on suspense and a dire mood, then "Absentia" is well worth checking out.
And the fact that Absentia achieved all this with a minimum budget makes it even more admirable.I definitely have huge interest in watching Flanagan's next films, with the hope of finding out that Absentia wasn't a product of chance, but of huge talent and genuine artistic vision.
Some viewers may be put off by the fact that the film's just too subtle in places - it could easily be described as one of those movies where "nothing much happens", like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT - but like BLAIR WITCH it knows what it's doing.There are flaws here, not least a slightly overwrought script and some particularly unsympathetic characters who do little to gain the viewer's sympathy or indeed attention.
.. Absentia, Mike Flanagan's first horror film, seems to have a very low budget.
Absentia was a big surprise, actually one of the better horror movies I've seen in a while.
The plot is ridiculous, the acting sub-par, and the even someone that only has 10% of his attention focused on the movie will be able to predict what happens next...Give this a miss, but if you happen to see it and agree that it is as bad as I say, write a review yourself and let's save others from watching it.On another note, I just noticed my original review, which was one of the first for this movie, was deleted years ago because I stated that most of the positive reviews at the time were certainly from people involved with the production, so they went so far as to try to get rid of negative reviews by any means possible..
Some parts of it are not the most original; it seems like Mike Flanagan, the director (also of the rather good if imperfect Oculus), likes certain tropes from horror movies of old, such as a haunted place with a history (this house which is in a "Bad" neighborhood, nevermind what specifically it is, but in this case it's near a spooky and ominous tunnel that's been a place where people have gone missing for a century), and that scene where the cases that precede what's going on in the story are revealed.
While in Absentia this happens at a point when we're already on our toes about what's to happen next, it feels familiar - maybe too familiar.I also might have liked Flanagan to delve a little more into the faiths of these women: one of them seems to be a committed Buddhist or other (the pregnant one Tricia, played by Courtney Bell, who sadly hasn't been in many films since this), and hits a gong in her bedroom and prays and...
It's unusual to see a horror/supernatural movie that isn't packed full of clichés, but Absentia makes a good attempt to be something a little different.
This could have been a recipe for disaster, but, I'm glad to say the writer/director pulled it off.The film is about two sisters who investigate the disappearance of one of their husbands and find it may be connected to a mysterious (and sinister) tunnel nearby.In some ways the film plays out pretty conventionally, ala the Ring, the Grudge and all those other horror films where a woman investigates something creepy, only to discover some dark supernatural force at work.
Writer/Director Mike Flanagan doesn't dish out a single scare moment until well into the first act, setting a brooding tone and letting the audience know and love the main characters.The story has the great simplicity of a horror premise (folks disappear beneath a creepy local bridge) and the complexity that can only come from experienced screen writing.
Absentia is a creepy and subtle horror flick that starts out like a traditional haunting movie and turns into quite something else.
Absentia is a very effective low budget chiller from writer/director Mike Flanagan who not only crafts an interesting tale of missing people and what might happen to them but, also touches on the emotional struggle of those left behind.
"Absentia" (2011) it's a Horror-Suspense Thriller written and directed by Mike Flanagan: the movie tells the story of a woman, Tricia (Courtney Bell) who has her husband mysteriously disappeared for 07 years and is in the process of declaring it dead legally, by "Absentia" (unexplained absence for an extended period), to continue her life.
Outside the sounds related to the history, the general mood of the movie is of silence, with the appearance of a music only in appropriate situations, consisting of a funeral organ, with a two-tone sad melody, which is perfect to translate the feeling of desolation and loneliness that the film conveys.The dialogs and acting, mostly by semi-unknown actors are great in comparison with many other low budget films that were successful in their time, and that, in my opinion are regular to bad thrillers, like Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch.The story with all the elements that I said, has a general mood of melancholy, loneliness, anguish and mystery, and will develop gradually, but do not expect too many action in the film, it has a more quiet development, without action scenes.
but it is perfect, keeping the atmosphere of mystery that the film wanted to show.There are almost none scenes with blood (only once, a brief one), or shocking and unnecessary scenes, in contrast to todays low-budget Horror and Suspense productions, with a high degree of appeal - this it is a lesson to be learn by many other writers and producers.It is an excellent movie, which I think should be watched by anyone who is a fan of Thrillers suspense / horror films, and undoubtedly deserves the awards the movie had.I hope that it have as much or more attention as the other two films I mentioned, because it have a much higher quality than them, in my opinion.Congratulations to Mike Flanagan for his work, I hope to see more movies by this author, very soon: My score: 8.3 / 10.0..
Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, Absentia finds Tricia (Courtney Bell) and Callie (Katie Parker) as two sisters who come to believe that the underpass nearby could be linked to the many disappearances in the area.A slow burn indie horror is not everybody's idea of a good time, but Flanagan has crafted a smart atmospheric chiller, one with a nifty fairy tale fantasy bubbling away under the surface.
The formula scares are kept to a minimum, Flanagan choosing to imbue the story with a sense of dread, toying with the sisters and us the viewers that there just may be something truly awful lurking just out of the eye line.This is not a creature feature, like The Relic or Mimic, this is a different horror film to those.
After suffering through the vast majority of low-budget indie horror films whose only motivation seems to be to make a quick buck on distribution deals, it is truly a delight when you stumble on to something wonderful like writer/director Mike Flanagan's Absentia.
After talking to Daniel, Tricia's younger sister Callie (Katie Parker) begins to suspect that something supernatural and rather nasty lurking in a nearby freeway underpass might have been responsible for Daniel's disappearance, but being a drug user, no-one will take her seriously.Kudos to the makers of Absentia for trying something a little different, and for successfully conjuring up a reasonable amount of creepy atmosphere on a budget, but this slow-burning low budget chiller is only a partial success, suffering from a cheap SOV aesthetic, a few weak performances (mostly from the male members of the cast), and a script that would really have benefited from a bit more polishing.
I liked the fact the this was a low budget movie, a small production that actually had a really good cast, directing team, along with editing and script writing..
"Absentia" is a good little film from writer / director Mike Flanagan about a young woman, Tricia (Courtney Bell) whose husband Daniel has been missing for over seven years.
Uninformed and lazy movie-goers who decide to write reviews end up destroying the perfectly good name of a movie, and Absentia is such a one.Please support genuinely good, independent, original, well-directed, low budget, well- acted films like Absentia.
Time was taken to develop characters which meant the movie had a very real feel, which is so important in a low budget movie like this.No, the special effects aren't stunning, but they are adequate and enough to back up the creepy atmosphere of this film.
As I watched this movie I became aware that this film has good development of story with believable characters (except the police--who show no real instinct and thus loses a star).
After having disappointment from many horror films I was compelled to write a review about this movie.
Her sister Callie (Katie Parker) shows up and suggests something strange about a tunnel, but she is ignored because of her history.Writer/Director Mike Flanagan managed to put together a solid movie despite the almost nonexistent budget.
Created on a low budget, they had some good acting, the music set the tone perfectly for just about every scene and it has a few decent jump scares.Now for the bad stuff: The ending.
At times I forgot Absentia was even a horror movie at all, so immersed was I in the plot that I felt as if I was going through the same confusing and unfortunate events that the characters on the screen were.
The extremely annoying music with the bad acting and god awful story line mix together to make one of the most boring horror movies out there.
Tricia's husband Daniel has been missing for the past 7 years and is effectively declared dead, and Callie appears to be trying to get on her own feet by staying with her sister for a while.Truth is, given this is a horror picture, that summary is about enough plot as, naturally, things get 'darker' with time.Absentia is an independent movie, reasonably low budget but this barely matters - as the true nature of the story, and the horror begins to emerge, the scares are in what you can't see, as opposed to what you can.