Review of The Secret Village (2013) by Ed C — 14 May 2014

One line summary: Murky horror/mystery set in a village in Massachusetts.

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Rachel is a reporter of sorts, and Greg is a screenwriter. Both of them become interested in reports of mass hysteria in a small town in Massachusetts. By some circumstance, they end up being room mates in a large house in the area.

The locals vary between not forthcoming and outright hostile. Rachel takes a job at a local eatery. Rachel keeps in touch with her boss by telephone. Greg floats around looking for information to help his creative process. Paul and Jim help Rachel with clues as they can. Greg's position turns out to be ambiguous; he steals some of Rachel's research materials and gives them to the villagers. Max, Rachel's boss, is glad to help her, but needs some sort of supporting facts before bringing in authorities to deal with the evil-doers.

Will Rachel get to the bottom of this? Will Greg's position become clear? Will the secrets be revealed?

-----Scores-----.

Cinematography: 8/10 Mostly clear and sharp; only occasionally falls into shaky camera mode.

Sound: 6/10 The music is reasonably creepy, but is often over the top compared to the story and visuals.

Acting: 1/10 I have nothing good to say here.

Screenplay: 0/10 Where do I begin? Editing is a clear weakness; some clips are out of sequence. Exposition of motivations is not good; I saw only a pinch of that on two characters. Too many of the short conversations in the film seemed context free. The historical flashbacks seemed to have little or nothing to do with the main story line. The ending may have been meant to be as wonderful as the ending of The Sixth Sense, but it fell flat instead.