The Last Will & Testament Of Rosalind Leigh

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh (2012)

Runtime: 80 minutes

Directed by: Rodrigo Gudino

Starring: Aaron Poole, Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Richings, Stephen Eric McIntyre

From: Rue Morgue Cinema

Here is a horror film I first heard about on a podcast earlier in the year, then saw discussed in a messageboard thread, where it got mixed reviews. It sounded different so I was hoping for it to be different in a good way rather than a bad way. It was directed by a newbie, but one who is not only the editor and President of Rue Morgue Magazine, but its founder. So needless to say he's a longtime fan, if nothing else.

The plot, from the IMDb: “An antiques collector inherits a house from his estranged mother only to discover that she had been living in a shrine devoted to a mysterious cult. Soon, he comes to suspect that his mother's oppressive spirit still lingers within her home and is using items in the house to contact him with an urgent message.”

If you do decide to see this, note that it is a S-L-O-W movie and Poole (one review described him as sort of looking like an 80's Phil Collins; this made me laugh) is pretty much the only guy you end up seeing for much of the runtime. The dead mom (Redgrave) you sometimes hear her narrate throughout the movie. A movie being slow is one thing, but a lot like The House of the Devil, it's slow AND boring. It seems like it would have been better off as a short rather than a feature length film. There seems to be a lot of nothing that's padding it out, you know. 

I mean, it is filmed technically well (at least in terms of cinematography), the print looks nice, the house is full of odd bric-a-brac so it does come off as being spooky at times (it better, if that's where most of the movie takes place in), although there seems to be too much stuff crammed into every shot and it becomes overkill after awhile; why didn't you try to be subtle there, movie? The score is also show-y and for the most part it was interesting.There's a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo and you can think of that how you will. 

I will say that the movie did not really work for me at all. It was just dull and for the most part did not creep me out at all; some of the stuff that was supposed to be scary, it was just hokey and goofy. There's also some really smug and turn-off dialogue involving the dude and his girlfriend, who's a shrink, or a doctor, or something... it was just bad and unappealing dialogue and delivery.

And the ending... it did not end on a high note. Nothing really gets resolved at all! That made watching the movie seem like a giant waste of time as it seemed rather pointless. I mean, it made me wonder why some people have gone wild over this. I did not think this Canadian production was really even all that good overall; no matter how it was filmed or the score, if the story is a whole lot of boring nothing...

I'll be back Tuesday night.