The Skeptic (2009)

the audience applauded

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

From the get go it seemed like B feature. It had a number of known actors and held great promise as it continued. Sadly the build up led to no much and the ending fell short. It was enjoyable until the fall. Its almost like they got scared of where it was going and changed direction in the last 60 seconds.

I found this film in a pile of movies at a pawn shop near my house. As a fan of the IFC line of films, I decided to pick it up. This movie unfolds at a very good pace. Every scene seemed important and the entertainment did not die down once. This is a ghost story type of movie and honestly it kinda felt like a TV movie, but that just made for a warm feel. Fellas, it's a good movie to watch with your girlfriend, but don't expect blood and guts because its the uneasy type of scary that this films delivers. There should be more low key horror films like this. another title that's similar but a little upscale with the terror is "The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh". I highly recommend it if you liked "The Skeptic".

The movie begins and constructs itself with a pretty decent structure. It often shocks you with a sudden unexpected horror tricks and you've to spare those scenes even if your mind says that its a cliché. Suddenly, the movie ends with an epic conclusion of absurdity, leaving ton of unanswered questions, while you end up convincing yourself that," OK! its not a mystery, its a bad story". What happened to him? is he dead? is he knocked down? what happened to his wife? whats the purpose of the psychic girl if she didn't prove anything? is he imagining his mother repenting for her sins or as in her soul regrets her sins? A decent ending would be him crying in front of her wife, emotionally broke and showing some respect for the world and not being a jerk, who sees the world as a skeptic. But no the writer had to crown a masterpiece with a puddle of mud to create some kind of mystery which is out of fashion in horror movies these days. It could have been an 8 movie but below 6 now, and that's the price you pay by spoiling a perfect story.

Hmmm... that should get a lot of "not helpful" votes, as all "-est of all time" comments are bound to get.Okay, too, that you say this isn't a horror film. I accept that. As far as makeup, effects, and gore go, this is on the extremely tame end of the horror spectrum, if it can even be said to fit the genre. Nevertheless, it is very scary. What do you call a really scary movie that doesn't scare you using any methods that fit the definition of "horrific", like blood etc? You got me.The true test of movie scariness, as far as I'm concerned, is how often during the viewing you feel compelled to look behind you, you know, to make sure nothing's there creeping up on you. That's it. Jumping out of your skin is of course another time-tested gauge of scariness, but movie makers now have a formula for making the audience do that whenever they want, so it's really lost most of its cache.Whatever you want to call it, this movie scared the bejesus out of me. This is a high-quality film with great acting, writing, directing, etc. The ending was also great. This movie scares you using story, subtlety, and a steady buildup that's just delicious every step of the way. Without spoiling anything, I'd just like to say that my favorite scene is when they find the doll. Tim Daly's reaction is Oscar-worthy. It's a shame this movie didn't get a proper wide release. The only thing that bothered me was that it sounded like Tom Arnold had a cold for most of his scenes. After searching the internet I've concluded that I'm the only one who noticed this.