"Why do we die?" "To make life important."

Year: 2009

Director: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo

Writers: Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo, Paul Vosloo, Jakub Korolczuk

Anna gets into a car accident. When she wakes up, a funeral director  is preparing her body for the funeral. He claims he has a gift to hear the dead, but Anna can't believe that she would be dead. Is he telling the truth, or is he just planning to bury her alive?

I've been interested in this movie for quite a while, but I'm watching it only now for some reason. I got interested, because of the story, and because of the good actors - especially Christina Ricci, but of course also Liam Neeson. And of course it's always interesting to watch movies with not so well-known director, in this case Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo. 

First thing I noticed was the colours. There was a lot of red and white in this movie, and they left a nice contrast. This movie was visually extremely interesting. There was a lot of beautifully coloured scenes, but of course very many horror elements. 

This movie did combine elements from horror and drama very well. There was so many typical horror movie details - like the lamps going out, the music that makes you think something horrifying is about to happen. Also there was a lot of drama elements, like the relationship between Anna and Paul, and many other things. In horror films they rarely focus on characters, but in this movie they really did. We get to know quite a lot about almost everyone, Anna, Jake, the funeral director Eliot Deacon and the little boy Jack from Anna's class. We learnt a lot but then again not much. The audience learns little things that don't seem so important taken apart from the context, but together they make a wonderful entirety, for the story and for the individual characters.

There's been a lot of talk about the ending of this movie. Well, not the ending that much, but the whole story. There's been some confusion on what really happened. There are theories, but people say that all of them have their flaws. The director said that there's only one truth to a movie, but many interpretations. I, of course, have my own view on the movie and what really happened. I won't write about it, though. That's mostly because I would have to spoil the plot and I really don't want to do that.

Now here's a movie I really want to recommend to basically everybody. Even though it has horror elements, it's not really scary, it's pressing, agonizing. You won't stay the night awake fearing for, I don't know, death, unless of course even the smallest horror details scare you. But I really recommend this movie to anyone, mostly because the story is interesting, and because even though it could be simple, it isn't when you start to think about it.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10