Walled In [Blu-ray]

If this film was in French it would be great Euro trash... Oddly recommendable.
If this film was in French it would be a perfect piece of style conscious, Euro trash "suspense" and "terror-lite" type movie making. It is not in French. But it is, however, unashamed to act out its peculiar premise and its stylishly framed but derivative plot devices with a vague Euro-esque decadence, as though everyone in the film wished that they had in fact been speaking French or Italian. Think "The Shinning" meets "Psycho" meets "Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea". In fact, echoing "Sailor Who Fell...", Mischa Barton bears a more than suggestive resemblance to Sarah Miles, and Cameron Bright bears a striking resemblance to Jonathan Kahn, the boy who played Sarah Miles' son in "Sailor Who Fell..."

There's something about the film that makes you think that the producers and writers were thinking of Asia Argento, or felt that aspiring to make an Asia Argento like film was a high calling.

The production values are much higher than you might have any...

CLAUSTROPHOBIC HORROR
One good thing about the newest generation of horror film directors is their willingness to move on to something different, to make horror films with new ideas and stories rather than just rely on the tried and true. It may not always make the best film or the scariest, but at least they make the attempt and deserve credit for doing so. Such is the case with WALLED IN.

The film opens with a young child trapped in a tall yet small cell, perhaps 2 feet wide. As she calls for her father, the cell beings to flood with a dark bluish gray substance we can only assume is concrete. It fills until it covers her and we move forward to the present day.

Mischa Barton plays Sam Walczak, a young woman who has just graduated from her training as a demolition engineer. Belonging to a family and demolitionists, it is her job to study the structure of a building and decide the best way to bring it down. As a graduation gift, her father presents her with the task of setting up the...

The week's most pleasant surprise by far.
Walled In (Gilles Paquet-Brenner, 2009)

The trailer for Walled In was hands-down the best trailer I've seen so far in 2009. That always means one of two things: either the movie it belongs to is going to be eight different kinds of totally awesome or one of the worst movies I see that year. And while Walled In has its flaws, it's definitely closer to the awesome side of the equation. In fact, I'd call it the best movie I watched this week without much hesitation.

Sam Walczak (The Oh in Ohio's Mischa Barton), a newly-minted engineer at her father's demolition firm, gets sent on her first assignment--the government-ordered demolition of a high-rise apartment building in the middle of nowhere. The building still has a few quirky inhabitants, most notably the caretaker, Mary (Paranoia 1.0's Deborah Kara Unger), and her lonely son Jimmy (Cameron Bright, who will soon become the heartthrob of teen girls everywhere in New Moon and Eclipse). Jimmy and Sam hit it off,...

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