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Saint-Ange |
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Anna recently started working at an orphanage.
She becomes friends with the mentally unstable
girl Judith and as soon as the children leave
for a couple of days, Anna and Judith start to
do some researching on the orphanage. But one
should never search for something that's meant to
be forgotten. The two women are soon way over
their heads and as more and more strange events
start taking place, the tension grows.
During the past few years we've learned that France
really knows their horror. I remember seeing the
trailer for this quite a while ago and I got the
impression that it would be a kind of ghost story
in the vein of "The Others". Well, it starts out as
a ghost story, and may I add a very creepy one as
well, I think I jumped maybe four times during the
first forty minutes or so, but after a while it
takes a fatal turn and becomes a futuristic zombie
flick. Rumour actually has it that this is supposed
to be a free standing sequel to Lucio Fulci's zombie
hit The Beyond. My reaction to this was that it's
a good thing that they didn't name it The Beyond 2
as this is nothing like the cult hit.
For being a zombie flick this is very dry, hardly
any gore at all, and the zombies also seem relatively
friendly in my opinion. They really should've stuck
to the ghost story that it starts out with. The
first half of the film is a slow-paced, very creepy
ghost story, imagine The Others mixed with Dark
Water. The second half of the film is also slow-
paced, but the thing is, that's all that it is.
It becomes a drawn-out drama and the constant scares
and chills that it gave us before seem to have been
erased completely in the second part. There movie
does have a few things in common with The Beyond
though but I'm having a hard time seeing Fulci fans
enjoying this.
The directing is however brilliant through the
entire film and the photo is absolutely stunning,
as one should always expect from a French movie.
The strong cast is also a good thing about the
movie though the actors are fed with a few very
stupid dialogues but they really make the best
of it. Saying that Saint-Ange was disappointing
would be a lie since the first part of the film
is absolutely brilliant and that makes the film
worth watching but all together this is not that
good of a film. Story wise it's weak and horror
wise it doesn't use all of its potential. If
you're in for a couple of scares though, check
this one out as the first part of the film is
really worth the money.
Some minor nosebleed is really all we get so don't
expect much here.
Atmospheric and astonishing with strokes, piano,
flute and choir music. This could not have been
better even if it's not very original.
First of all, never let Virginie Ledoyen, playing
Anna, into your house as she will tear down your
walls, dig through your isolation and make a mess
everywhere she goes. Saint-Ange works as a ghost
movie but not as a zombie movie and since only
the first forty minutes or so is a ghost story,
I can only give it a rating of 3/5.
Review By: AnthroFred
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