IN: Review: This oddity from Roman Polanski clearly shows where his preoccupations lay at the time he made it. Polanski himself plays a timid man who rents a Parisian apartment where the previous tenant committed suicide. He becomes obsessed with discovering what led her to it, to the point that he's dressing in drag and reenacting events the way they might have unfolded. The movie's unsettling to a point, and it has that atmosphere of creepy dread that Polanski excels at, but it comes off too much as a rehash of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Repulsion," two other better Polanski films that deal with the eerie goings on in moody apartments.

But as for the preoccupation....unless I'm reading too much into the film, I have to believe that this was Polanksi's reaction to the feelings of persecution he felt at being labeled a sexual pervert and exiled from America. Not making a judgement about him one way or the other myself, but it's hard to deny the evidence of that in the movie itself.

Grade: B+
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: I liked the initial premise to this film which is what led me to hunt it out but the problem I quickly found is that one pretty much knows what's going to happen within the first 20-30 minutes ( the doubles will come from behind the mirror and take over everybody).

There is no real twist (which is fine) , but the final reveal doesn't make a great deal of sense either (how can she be racked with uncertainty and fear for the whole film, if she's an evil id from beyond the mirror?).

Admittedly the scenes 'beyond the mirror' were chilling when they first appeared and the blonde's murder is also effectively creepy, but ultimately alas this seems to be a film in search of a story or a more engaging script, piling atmosphere upon atmosphere and over the top scary sound design for 80-90 minutes does not really cut it, in fact it gets quite dull.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: I think I agree that a lot of the comments here must be fake. Even if the movie is not necessarily bad its definitely below average. "Dark Remains" is basically a Ghost Movie with a premise of your own ghosts and bad emotions haunting you. The movie starts off already with 2 stories loosely inter-webbed which even later are not tied together. A couple loses its child which is found slashed in its bed. They move to a country house to flee their past and guess what... the house is haunted, kind of. From here on Dark Remains starts off very slow with some scary moments indeed (The first ghost appearances are nice and the flashlight sequence also worked very good). OK, then... Woman sees ghost of daughter, other ghosts of people died in accidents or suicides appear, man tries to solve secret of houses past, woman gets depressed, strange neighbors appear. Its pretty much all been there, but the premise of it being their own emotions is nice, so you wait for the twist. There is no twist, you are just confused by a haunted house history story, the strange neighbor, a totally pointless creepy prison and the dead daughter thrown together with a photo-idea reminding me a lot of "The shutter". The end is ridiculous because when you start and end a movie this slow and with piano music its pretty lame to include some hoards of ghosts at once which look like a zombie flick, of course just to return to slow pacing and piano music.

To make it short... Dark Remains could have been a nice scary ghost story if the script was not trying to go everywhere and arriving nowhere.Too many stories mushed together which just don't make any sense and contradict in the basic atmosphere of the movie. And beside... please never use abandoned prisons again. Its so worn off and in this case it even makes no sense at all. "Hey, there is this creepy prison uphill, lets shoot there". I guess a lot of ingredients in Dark Remains were thrown in the mix like this.
What is this review like?
OUT: negative

IN: Review: Somewhat too long and going over the top towards the end, this comedy is an utterly delightful, never condescending or ridiculing look into the problems of a "power man", who likes to wear women's clothes at nite.

Julie Walters is lovely as always, but Adrian Pasdar is utterly credible and steals the film. He (she)is absolutely gorgeous in high heels and silk stockings.
What is this review like?
OUT:
positive