mikebrunton70 What was this movie ? Was it a horror film ? A thriller ? Honestly, it took me a lot of time to get to the end of this. One of those movies which by the end is so ridiculous and contrived you feel cheated. A woman who is scared by being stalked, but actually has some long involved plan to get revenge on her boyfriend, who tried to kill them and her parents, but luckily for them, just the parents die ! So she waits until they get married to finally kill him. But honestly, there was so little going on, except confusing story lines, a sister who is also neurotic, a brother or in law who is a peeping tom/obsessive, blah, blah, blah. All these weird characters do and acting like weird. This movie should be avoided by anyone who doesn't like wasting time. It is just awful. I kept hoping something would make sense, the ending is utterly ridiculous.

mjsreg I am surprised that some of the reviews are so damning of this film.OK - its not a classic, but it isn't absolutely dire either.The storyline is excellent and you never know what the whole story is until right at the end - which was something I didn't really expect until the last 5 or 10 minutes.It is worth watching provided you don't have any expectations.The only thing I didn't like about the film was the casting of John Robinson in the key male role. He is too effeminate to be credible. The role needed someone who could play the age but also have something interesting about them. He was just bland from start to finish.

Mr_Ectoplasma I have a soft spot for B-horror films— it's not just that I am usually very entertained by them, but I really just find them charming. Maybe I have an underdog complex. Regardless, I'm not even sure why I am dispensing this information, because I don't know if I can classify "Something Wicked" as a B-movie completely, given the relatively high production values and moderately well-known cast (including the late and great Brittany Murphy). Even if "Something Wicked" isn't a B-movie entirely, it feels like one, and works within this framework. The plot follows a young woman, Christine (Shantel VanSanten) who loses her parents in an accident; she survives, however, as does her boyfriend, James (John Robinson). Christine moves in with her older brother, Bill (James Patrick Stuart), a local cop, and his wife, psychologist Susan (Brittany Murphy), and attends the local university. She and James begin to plan a future together beginning with a marriage, but Christine begins experiencing personal attacks and believes herself to be haunted by demons of the past and stalked by a real-life attacker. Where does Christine's truth lie?It is without question that the main reason "Something Wicked" is even seeing the light of day at Regal Cinemas right now is because it marks Brittany Murphy's final performance before her untimely death. Had Murphy not passed away, the film would likely have been relegated to the land of straight-to-DVD Redbox specials, but it is currently having an extremely limited theatrical run in the Pacific Northwest, and is one of the few indie films to surface in quite some time from my beautiful home state of Oregon (it was filmed in Eugene, a college town about three hours south of Portland, where I am from). And you know what? I'm glad the film is playing in a mainstream cinema, no matter how limited. It's just a shame that it took Murphy's death to get it there.The reasons behind the film's delay are ambiguous (it was filmed in 2009), but regardless, what we have here is a no-holds-barred indie horror thriller that is not quite serious enough to be taken at face value, but classy enough that it cannot be dismissed by genre fans. The script plays with genre setups and conventions galore, but they don't appear as clichés because the film refuses to let them be— it walks the line between a made-for-TV movie and a first-rate thriller, which is bizarre, but also extremely absorbing for people who are into this kind of thing. As someone who watches these films all the time, I should have seen the plot twists coming, but I didn't— the script quickly throws the audience into a disorienting snake pit of red-herrings and spends the rest of its time clawing its way out to the conclusion. The performances in the film are also worth taking note of; Shantel VanSanten leads the film and is vulnerable and believable, paired with John Robinson ("Elephant") as her husband-to-be. James Patrick Stewart plays her (perhaps too) protective cop brother quite believably, and Julian Morris ("Cry_Wolf") appears as the ominous and sexy stalker boy on campus— and then of course there is Murphy, who is completely alive and engaging in all of her scenes, her range oscillating between upper-class psychologist and prescription-addled madwoman.All this said, I don't know who the audience for "Something Wicked" is, as it's not flashy enough to attract a mainstream horror audience, and it is not something that has enough draw for the general public either. It perhaps has a niche market of diehards and B-horror fans like myself, as well as those who are ardent fans of Murphy's and want to see her last hurrah. At its heart, "Something Wicked" is nothing more than a self-aware indie horror flick with a series of twists and turns that aren't particularly profound, but I'll be damned if they don't make for an enjoyable and entertaining ninety minutes. If Murphy's untimely death gave us anything, it was the chance for an earnest and underrepresented indie horror film such as this to see the light of day— no matter how small or large that may be. 7/10.

Earl Gosnell Christine Webb (Shantel VanSanten) is recovering from the shock of her parents' tragic demise a year ago and is now enrolled in Oregon Universtiy--stand-in for University of Oregon (UO). She is living with her older brother Bill (James Patrick Stuart) who is a state policeman, and his wife Dr. Susan Webb (Brittany Murphy), some kind of clinical psychologist. She seems to have forgiven her boyfriend James (John Robinson) who was driving when the train hit their stalled vehicle, though how someone who is handy with the machinery at the mill and who drives a motorcycle can't avoid a train or see it coming is beyond me. At any rate they are like to get engaged now that the impediment of her parents' objection is removed, and they have a nice secluded honeymoon cottage all picked out.This is not an ideal picture. Christine is being stalked by a mysterious hooded character for unknown reasons and she thinks her dead mom is leaving cryptic messages for her from Shakespeare to warn her away from James. Even though she's living with a (state) cop, she goes to campus security and they call in the city police (UO security has since become a regular police force.) Add to that the County Sheriff patrolling their honeymoon cottage, and you'd think she's covered, but they are long on police and short on security, if you get my drift.Being familiar with the campus and city and region where this film was made does not help quell my misgivings. Just the opposite. Christine's parents are buried in the Pioneer Cemetery adjacent to campus and is at the nexus of several locations in the film: the classroom where the authorities have a word with a student, the building housing the swimming pool where Christine gets caught undressed, the statue of the pioneer mother (another dead woman watching over us), campus security headquarters, and the student housing office. I mean, if the film crew had an extra long extension cord, they wouldn't even have had to unplug going from one location to another.What really got me, though, is when Susan drops her daughter off at preschool, she doesn't leave her at the preschool building which is on the southwest corner of the cemetery but at the psychology building on the northeast corner of the graveyard. There are some deep psychological problems hinted at, but locals may think they're looking in the wrong quarter."Something Wicked" builds up the suspense with the camera slinking around to suspenseful background music until something wicked jumps out at us. This movie puts me in mind of Alfred Hitchcock, so masterfully is it done. The pacing is perfect and the sets oh so innocent looking. Brittany Murphy was the outstanding actress, though hers was not the lead part. Events just moved all the rest of them along as they did us.I was utterly surprised by how good this film was and am giving it a ten out of ten. I've detailed various local insights on my personal web page at http://www.bibles.n7nz.org/movies/stwicked.htm