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Review: Seance (2006)

seanceI was able to catch Séance for the first time tonight courtesy of Chiller TV. Interesting selection! Here’s my thoughts.

Séance is written and directed by Mark L. Smith. It’s his directorial debut, although his previous screenwriting credits include Vacancy and Vacancy II. Cast members featured within include Bridget Shergalis, Tori White (Candy Stripers, Desert of Blood), Chauntal Lewis, Kandis Erickson (Death Valley II, Frankenstein Reborn), Jack Hunter, Emily O’Brien (“The Young and the Restless”), Joel Geist, A.J. Lamas (“As the World Turns”), and Adrian Paul (“War of the Worlds,” “Highlander”).

“Over Thanksgiving weekend, all but five students in an old Manhattan building that’s now a college dormitory leave for home: staying on one floor are roommates Lauren, Melina, and Alison, plus her boyfriend Diego and Grant, a loner in a room down the hall. Lauren’s been seeing things in her bathroom: a silent child of about six. Diego has written a paper on parapsychology, so he holds a séance with the disbelieving co-eds. Something goes awry, because bad things start to happen and the students’ only defender is an aging campus cop named Syd. What’s the silent ghostly girl’s secret, and can Alison discover what’s going on before it’s too late?” – IMBD

Séance is your typical horror movie when it comes to casting and characters. All the actors within this title are decent, I’ll even go as far as to say they’re good, but not a lot is required of them. This one be slutty. This one be douchbaggy. This one be the best friend. I don’t think any of the actors were stretched in their abilities here, however, the quality of the movie didn’t suffer because of it. There just aren’t any standouts. In terms of characters, as I already sort of mentioned above, Séance has the stereotypical characters that you’ll find in every horror title. The majority of them aren’t redeemable in any sort of way, and the characters that actually seem like normal human beings are still kind of bland. Taking place at a college university, Mr. Smith had dozens of new stereotypes to choose from, but he went with the standards. One of many missed opportunities.

Being that this is a horror film with strong supernatural elements – I need to clarity that Séance isn’t scary…like at all. At first I thought, “Well maybe it isn’t scary because I’m a 26-year-old dude who has seen over a thousand scary movies,” but as my viewing continued I realized it wasn’t me. I think Séance was trying on purpose not to be scary. There’s a chance that Séance wasn’t relying on gore and cheap scares to meet its goals. On the flip side, the film may have been relying on the mystery and paranormal activity to entertain. I mean, there is a difference between a horror film and a supernatural horror film. My problem is that Séance never declared itself in either direction. And the off-camera death scenes. What’s with the off-camera death scenes? More missed opportunity. Show me something good. I’m entertained by brooms falling over in the hallway and creepy whistling, but I need more if you want to hold my attention for over a half hour.

To sum up my gripes with his film, I’ll say that Séance brought nothing new to the table. That’s my problem. After my viewing tonight I’m probably never going to think of this film again. It has absolutely no standout qualities. Same kind of characters. Same setting. Same tricks. Same lackings. Now, I don’t want to sound like I hate this film. Because I don’t. I would have turned it off early or fast-forwarded (it was recorded) if I didn’t like it. In reality I think it’s a really strong directorial debut for Mr. Smith. It looks nice. It had potential. I think it just got lost during the last script draft and again during the decision making processes during principal photography. I wonder if the director could do the whole thing over, would he change anything? Again, it’s an ok movie, but it’s missing a lot things that kept it from being good.

I’m going to rate it 5 out of 10.

Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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