Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Deep-Thought "The Yellow Wallpaper" is a 6,000-word short story by the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in The New England Magazine. It is regarded as an important early work of American feminist literature, illustrating attitudes in the 19th century toward women's physical and mental health.This film adaptation of the story was directed by Logan Thomas, who has done mostly short films. And since the estimated budget is reported as $1.5 million, I'm prepared to be generous in my critique. But even a charitable attitude can't lift this film out of the cinematic doldrums. It is limp, shapeless and draggy. The scriptwriters have drained the story of its blood. The writing is stilted and flat-footed; the plot has been transformed from that of a woman gradually descending into madness into a fairly plodding ghost story. Any perceived feminist message is gone. The yellow wallpaper with which the female protagonist of the story becomes obsessed is definitely there on the walls, but it hardly figures in the film at all. The film perks up a little at the end, but only a little.Speaking of being generous: Calling the acting turgid and barely above amateurish IS being generous. In fact I thought that the 3 leads were amateurs until I looked them up. The female lead, Juliet Landau, is the daughter of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. In this film her character Charlotte is supposed to be deep in the throes of despondency and PTSD after witnessing her daughter being burned alive in a house-fire. But in her performance no suffering is apparent; she's either very morose or a little less morose. She looks like a young Greta Scacchi after a serious illness. Aric Cushing projects no energy at all; he's just unkempt and phlegmatic in the extreme. Of the three leads, only Dale Dickey has any luster whatever on screen. Michael Moriarty shows up at the beginning of the film for about 3 minutes, and Veronica Cartwright has about 10 minutes of screen time near the end.The film's setting is lush: A house set back in the woods (somewhere outside of Atlanta), but compositions lack focus, not to mention clarity. The sound is poor; the dialogue mostly is distant and muffled. The fact that most of the dialogue wasn't looped and the sound remixed as should have been done may reflect the low budget.If this were a student film, I'd give it about a C-plus.

pimathieu This film takes a remarkable risk for a movie these days by avoiding cgi and using an impressionist approach to lighting its Gothic story.The moody, enigmatic atmosphere of this film is very unconventional for an American movie and the action and gore horror crowd may have trouble appreciating it. The intense Gothic atmosphere from the lighting, camera shots, and general cinematography is not something I have seen often in American films. It has a lot more in common with European films. The films of Werner Herzog came to my mind. The film evoked memories of the emphasis on enigmatic and creepy mood in the movies Nosferatu and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. The pacing and buildup also reminded me of the classic David Bowie vampire tale The Hunger. The unresolved questions and the unsolved mysteries are also very European. The film remains mysterious to the end and the final scenes daze and confuse more than they solve. What is real? What is dream, hallucination, haunting? Who are Eckhart van Wakefield and Burn in Hell Man? The inclusion of symbolic elements like the arid desert that needs to be crossed to get from the house to the outside world contributes to this also. I found the cinematography to be simply beautiful. I loved the shots with darkened characters silhouetted by the light shining through windows. The extensive use natural lighting combined with filters reminded me of the films of David Hamilton. The scene with the main character Dr. John Weiland going through the house with the candelabra as the only light is excellent and spooky. The play of the three main actresses is bang on: Juliet Landau, whom I saw in Ed Wood, Dale Dickey, whom I remember from True Blood, Veronica Cartright, whom I've seen in a lot of movies and in the TV show Daniel Boone in the early seventies when I was a kid! In fact, Dale Dickey is positively eerie at times! Aric Cushing has a very challenging role to deal with. A professional doctor and father who lost what is most precious to him in horrifying circumstances and has withdrawn into a sullen mood, deeply challenged to cope with what is happening around him and remain in control of himself. Not an easy thing to pull off. To his credit, he carries it off very well. Even though he has a small role, it was also fun to see Michael Moriarty at play in this film. The period reconstitution is convincing: costumes, make up, decors and scenery. Very good job for such a low budget. It also helps that the site and house they chose to film the movie is magnificent. The only minor issue I had with the film was with the music and the sound mixing. Don't get me wrong, the music is very good and contributes greatly to the mood of the movie. The problem was with the intensity of the crescendos which was distracting at times, the music feeling occasionally too loud with respect to the mood set by the visuals, or the crescendo seeming unnecessarily dramatic. The scene where Dale Dickey is wiping dust from a shelf and shakes the rag is the one that stuck most to my mind. I think the music being more subdued would have worked better. The voice mixing seemed a little off also in some of the talking head scenes where it gave a TV teleplay feel. But this is minor stuff. Highly recommended to those who like films that are all about atmosphere and mood.

basaproject This is a film which honors patience. It is not for those who need action-packed adrenaline stoking from beginning to end. This is a film for those who appreciate the slow build up to terror of a classic Gothic ghost story.The characters speak slowly in careful Victorian, but Midwestern American, English as the year is 1892. The camera reveals scenes with a languid, sensuality. Yet, there is a discomforting eerie quality that builds as the film progresses. Most of the scenes are outside or within a 100-year old haunted house. A few sequences are of a bleak landscape separating the house from town. The sound track has a threatening undertone. John encounters a rat-killing couple on a bicycle ride into town. The encounter is the first of increasingly bizarre experiences that John, his wife, and sister-in-law, Jennifer have, after renting the house with yellow wallpaper. Suspense builds, like waves, each reaching a bit higher, and the viewer's tension notches up.The film is wonderfully atmospheric and full of symbolic allusion (e.g., town represents safety, where there is civilization, but it is cut off by desert, forest, and distant mountains, thus unattainable for those caught in the web of terror). The stark Victorian mansion, at first, seems to offer a comforting respite for the grief-stricken family. John and Charlotte have lost their daughter in a fire that consumed their previous house. True to its Gothic literary antecedent, however, the house's hidden terrors slowly enrapture and capture its occupants. The descent into terror and madness is a slow but steady incline, not a dash from a spring board.John, a medical doctor, demands that the family maintain its rational, civilized understanding of reality and thus seek understanding of the inexplicable events that begin to occur after moving into the house. Charlotte embraces the irrational-supernatural aura of the house as a means to reconnect with their deceased daughter. Jennifer, the pragmatist, brings in a "ghost-buster" from back east. So, what force will prevail and will the 3 survive as they approach the final horror the house dishes up? The production is first class in all respects. The sets appear historically accurate to the Victorian era. The soundtrack music is wonderfully eerie and then shrieks like Psycho when the viewer's nerves are about to snap with tension. The acting is superb by all 3 of the main characters, and the walk-ons are appropriately creepy. The writing and direction bring to life for 21st Century viewers a classic Gothic tale of terror.

guitarrgirl While not loving the short story, it certainly made an impression on me when I read it. I was anxiously awaiting that story in movie form. Boy was I disappointed. Plot line was incredibly stupid and had nothing to do with the short story. Vampires? Really? Ridiculous! The story had enough to deal with on its own and would have been a far better choice (and use of the million plus budget) than this uneven, lackluster and unbelievable plot. Previous reviewers have pointed out the differences between the original story and this one already. And yes, I get that the movie is based on an amalgam of the authors' other stories. It just didn't work. And why not call it something other than "The Yellow Wallpaper" since it had little to do with it? Bad form!