Rent Absentia (2011)

Good budget horror - Absentia review by CP Customer

'Absentia'is a well acted and directed budget horror film. Its effectiveness comes from the well-acted, believable characters, and the suspense.

The horror is suggested rather than shown, so don't expect fancy CGI etc.

Its a good looking film, the photography adds to the overall quality, and a couple of instances of camera shake can be forgiven!

Moody and unsettling ... - Absentia review by NP

Mike Flanagan partly raised the finance for this 2001 film via Kickstarter, and each contributor is name-checked in the end credits. Such commitment to a project should be applauded – Flanagan clearly has a passion for the story he chooses to tell. The results are low-key and doubly effective for that.

I love horror films that make the ordinary appear extraordinary. An underpass, much like those at the end of any street or town, slowly becomes foreboding; to be avoided – somewhere you’d choose not to walk down. This is due to the lighting, the direction, and of course, the eerie things that go on within those walls.

Courtney Bell, actually seven months pregnant during the shoot, plays Tricia, is coming to terms with the fact that her partner has disappeared and may not be coming back. Her sister Callie comes to visit. Both are ‘unreliable’ narrators when it comes to the strange happenings they claim are happening; Tricia is suffering from loss and we soon discover Callie was, until recently, a drug addict – indeed, we’re not convinced she’s truly kicked the habit. So when they claim to see shambling, half-dead people … should they be believed?

A familiar-sounding format this may be, but it isn’t long before Flanagan plays tricks with us. Our expectations are regularly confounded and the film morphs into something even more interesting than we may have been led to believe. With only a smattering of special effects, this moody piece becomes genuinely unsettling at times. My score is 8 out of 10.