lewiskendell I enjoyed Jessabelle. If you are partial to a sweaty, swampy, bayou ghost story then it's likely that you will enjoy yourself with the movie as well. The story benefits from unraveling slowly and leaving some mystery about what's really happening until the very end. After a terrible accident leaves her reliant on a wheelchair, a woman is forced to move back to her family home in the Louisiana swamp with her estranged father. She finds that there are more than just emotional ghosts waiting for her in that lonely house. As far as modern horror goes, this isn't an overly violent or gory film. There are a few jump scares sprinkled throughout, but most of the time Jessabelle relies on building discomfort and unease through glimpses of figures that shouldn't be there, ominous sounds, and unnatural events among the oppressive bayou gloom. That makes it more unnerving when moments of extreme violence do come. The end of the movie was a highlight for me, especially since many horror movies tend to fall apart in the last act. The closing events actually make sense within the context of the story and bring closure. The only real problem I had with the movie was that the resolution was fairly similar to another movie in the genre. That didn't ruin Jessabelle by any means, but the ending was so familiar that I won't mention the name of the other movie that I'm thinking of because anyone who has seen it will instantly have a fairly accurate idea of how Jessabelle concludes.I recommend Jessabelle to anyone with an affinity for this type of horror - where atmosphere, mystery, and story take the lead over lots of action and mayhem.

Argemaluco Jessabelle is quite a competent horror film, whose screenplay begins on a conventional way in order to later get more interesting and complicated with unexpected twists and ingenious tangents soaked of the "voodoo" folklore associated to the marshes of Louisiana, in which the story is set. Director Kevin Greutert reduces the shocks and accentuates the atmosphere, making the film slow, but never boring due to the continuous evolution of the main mystery and the gradual revelation of details which lead us to a satisfactory ending. Then, we have the solid work from the whole cast, highlighting Sarah Snook, whose reactions to the supernatural phenomenons keep a credible balance between terror and curiosity, specially when her character finds the "messages" from her deceased mother. Those messages, in the shape of old VHS tapes, are a very appropriate trick to impulse the story and elevate its emotional level without forcing the drama. The cinematography and settings let us see the classic duality of the marshes: during the day, beautiful lagoons rounded by picturesque flora; and at night, decrepit mudflats which hide terrible secrets from the past. As for the effects and gore, there's nothing to say; as I said, Jessabelle keeps a tone of intimate and even psychological suspense, so don't expect any gore or terrifying creatures. This might disappoint some "hardcore" fans of horror, but I personally appreciated the sober direction, carefully constructed screenplay and moderate displays of horror, which are credible precisely because they don't exaggerate too much or obfuscate us with edition tricks, strident music or similar clichés from contemporary horror cinema. In conclusion, Jessabelle isn't a great film, but I liked it pretty much, and I think it deserves a recommendation. Besides, I think this film would be good material for a preteen sleepover: gloomy enough to provoke momentary anxiety, without causing psychological damage in a long term. Or at least, that's what I hope... don't blame me if the kids end up developing a phobia against the VHS tapes.

chaos-rampant A girl suffers a traumatizing accident and has to go back to the paternal nest somewhere in the bayous to put herself together. The turmoil begins to take shape outside, upsetting reality; ghosts or madness?So all told, you will peruse this as a generic film of its kind. But there's something worth talking about here, an entry that lets us see how horror is a multilayered response to fracture, much more so than any masked goon stalking around campus or ghosts in a house generally show. This is what I mean. The girl retrieves old videotapes of her long dead mother from a drawer, filmed while she was pregnant, so right off the bat we have a desire for communion, contact, memory. The mother inside the tapes happily beams and jokes about the day her daughter will see them; life, and by extension the inner life of memory that holds the image of loved ones, could be as simple as this. Here's where it gets really interesting. The mother (still inside the tapes) begins to read the cards to her unborn daughter. Card reading is only another facet of the most common human folly; we are not content with the few simple certainties of life, and so a desire for the future to be known, for narrative to be surmised. Suddenly the cards, images within images of the tape, reveal something horrible, horror that is nowhere yet except the images suggest it.And this goes on to cast a spell on the viewer-daughter who begins to anticipate nightmare the imagined narrative inside the tape warns is coming, which gives rise to hallucination. Per generic rules of horror, this is indeed later made concrete with a shift to voodoo, an actual spell that has been cast, to avenge something horrible from a dark past.This leads to a series of twists that culminate with one that goes back and rewrites the whole story, which in the generic context make for just a very cool backstory. The tapes were not intended as we thought they were, the narrator (the mother) not vested with the role we thought.But if you free it up from the context of genre, ruminate on what has indeed happened, it becomes powerful stuff. See, the mother began to read the cards that day, in so doing had an intuitive flash of premonition, inspired by the chance turn of symbolic images. Sure enough this comes to pass, not because foreshadowed by arcane forces, but because people can be shamed into violence. A spell is cast as per local folklore. But in the tapes all that is preserved is the horrible intuition, the premonition, and this goes on to spellbind the daughter to investigate, thus bring to light, that it did happen as presaged.So, in a commonplace viewing this is generic horror, ghosts exist and demand atonement. The last twist is beyond silly, the most generic of all. But in an abstract viewing that does away with certainties, it lends itself to powerful stuff on intuitive apprehension, which is at the bottom of self and how we know reality, all inside this backstory anchored in the tapes which only on the top end give rise to the horror we're watching.

lathe-of-heaven ***EDIT (2015-11-04)Wow, 0 out of 2 found this helpful...? Really...? GEEZ, are my reviews THAT bad, seriously... How very sad... Hey, PLEASE feel free to send me ANY suggestions at all about whatever you think I can do to improve, and I will be happy to try harder to do better...*** END EDITThis is VERY Old-School Horror. So, right up front some people who are used to and prefer more 'Modern' or intense Horror films will almost invariably NOT like this movie or will find it 'Slow' or 'Boring' as some have mentioned in their Review Summaries here.BUT... The film is indeed VERY well made, expertly put together, and most entertaining, *** IF *** you are the kind of person who likes this kind of Horror movie. It is first and foremost a Ghost Story / Voodoo film, with the emphasis on the Ghost Story part. Many here have either positively or negatively compared it to 'SKELETON KEY', which is somewhat true. Except that that movie is primarily a Voodoo film. If you liked it, then you may very well like this one (especially if you also like Ghost Stories :) It is almost entirely constructed out of a heavy, suspenseful mood that I personally found to be quite gripping, tangible, and visceral.The commentary is really enjoyable and I highly recommend listening to it if you do end up liking the film. The ones behind it, the director, writer, and others responsible for the creative processes in this movie clearly had a lot of fun making it. And, I really got the impression that although they both have done MUCH bigger projects, they still really put their hearts and a lot of work into making this one.Usually, the performances in these low budget Horror films can be quite insulting and excruciatingly bad at times (please see my review of the recent 'HONEYMOON' - GEEZ, the acting in that one was truly AWFUl compared to this one) But here, I feel that all the actors and actresses in this one are quite good, and more importantly, BELIEVABLE, which is usually what I find sorely missing in most Horror films today.But, I should make a very important point for any who may be interested in checking this film out. I really think that in order to be able to enjoy it fully, you probably should be the kind of person who is very impressionable with an active imagination, so that all the subtle and not-so-subtle atmospheric and creative touches of the film will have the greatest impact. Needless to say, I am such an impressionable Wussy, that this one definitely drew me in and smacked me around a little...So, IF you are the kind of person who cannot EASILY suspend disbelief and get sucked into a good Ghost Story or Voodoo based film, then you may likely just find this one to be kind of 'Slow' and 'Boring' like some others here have said. Especially if you like your Horror films to be more 'In your face' or with heavier doses of violence or gore.Remember, MOST PG-13 Horror films usually are not very good. So, in my lowly and wretched opinion, I honestly feel a lot of thought and work went into this movie to create a genuinely spooky and effective atmosphere. So, if you like this type of a slow-burn, atmospheric, moody Ghost Story with some Voodoo overtones, I think that there is a good chance that you might really enjoy it...