Descendant (2003)

People are voting emotionally.

Memorable, crazy movie

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

...though for a film that seems to be trying to market itself as a horror, there was a distinct lack of blood.There was also a distinct lack of skilled directing, acting, editing, and script-writing.Jeremy London put in one of most appalling performances I've ever seen - his "descent into the maelström" of madness is achingly self-aware and clumsy. Oh look at him twitch! Oh look at him drink strong spirits! Oh look at him raise his brow, and cock his head at a jaunty angle! Oh look at his unwashed, greasy dark hair! Oh listen to his affectedly husky voice! He must be a tortured artist/writer/genius! Oh, yes, out comes the poet-shirt - it's another boy who thinks he's Byron. (Or Poe.) Oh for the love of... did someone give this guy a manual on "How To Act Good" or did they just pull him out of a cardboard box somewhere, the defunct little plastic toy-prize in a discontinued brand of bargain-bin cereal. Okay, that was a stupid line - but that's only because London's performance has melted my brain with its awfulness.Katherine Heigl is cute, and very briar rose, but has yet to grow into her acting shoes in this film - she delivered her lines like she was being held up, in fact, her whole performance was very wooden, her poses as stiff as her lines - who knows, perhaps she was just reacting to, and trying to neutralise, Jeremy London's flailing excesses, but if that's the case, she takes it too far.Notable is Arie Verveen as Poe - while his character's role is confused, he delivers the best performance of the piece. He, quite simply, looks right, but it's more than that - he has some sort of depth, I believed that he had a life beyond the dismal two-dimensional quality of the rest of the characters. Huh, maybe it's just because I like Poe, and could thus just let my mind wander and invent while he was on screen - whatever, he had an interest factor otherwise missing.The rest of the characters are a faceless blur - there are all the usual caricatures: the perky blonde best-friend who's a bit of a floozy; the smitten local cop who's a bit of a dork; the protective older man who perhaps has too much un-fatherly interest in our heroine; the scheming old witch, etc., etc., yawn, yawn. As with the 'distinct lack of blood for a horror movie' issue, none of the themes that they mention (and that London's character mentions - so scathingly - in his attack on Poe's writing) are followed through on. As another reviewer said - there was potential here: murder, incest, - genuinely shocking stuff, but instead they skirt away from the issues, and cut away from the violence (a raised candlestick swinging through the air - closing in on it's victim - then---cut to black! This is fine in a Noirish traditional horror, indeed, it's expected, and is fondly received when it happens - it's a dear convention, especially when accompanied by fake lightning bolts and intense Siouxie eye makeup - but in 'Descendant' it just comes across as clumsy, or as though the editor got queasy at the last minute and cut it out.) This could have either been a very tense psychological thriller - the horror of palingenesis/delusion/madness - or a simple (and fun) slasher movie: it tries to be both, or neither (something new and exciting!), but either way it fails dismally. The only horror element of this entire movie is it's epic dullness.I think the editor (if there was one at all) must have been drunk when s/he chopped this thing up - there are awkwardly foreshortened scenes; scenes that appeared to be out of order (but that could have just been the poor script). LIkewise the director & cinematographer - there were some very strange shots and framing that I think were meant to be tributes to Hitchcock or Browning, but just ended up looking silly (again, fine in a noir, but this was trying to be something else.)The whole thing perhaps may have been funny (in that way that previous reviewers have mentioned - "OMG how did this get made?!?") if I had been in the mood for some trash- bagging, unfortunately for me I had settled on the couch, with the lights down low, with the express intention of scaring myself silly - this is a very poor film, and I'm afraid I can't recommend it to people, not even for laughs.Please, please, don't waste your time or money on this - either borrow a real horror/thriller film, or find yourself a copy of Poe's fantastical tales, either way, you'll have a far more enjoyable and frightening night than you could ever hope to achieve with this rubbish.

This film remains true to the thriller/murder mystery genre. I think it does a fair job of it. But what makes this film different is its descent into the life of Poe at the same time. It touches themes that Poe touched in his wonderful tales of romantic horror and makes a true Poe fan smile time after time. This film is unique and follows a simple story line to its logical conclusion in an entertaining fashion for those who love Poe.The leads are good actors and "Ann" is lovely.I think anyone that has poured over the bloody pages of Poe's short stories surely will be entertained on two levels by this far too easily dismissed attempt, an attempt to do something more than just entertain us with a mystery murder story. It is a tale of madness, of love, of confusion and killings.

The Film must have been shot in a day,there are scenes where you can see the camera reflections and its red pointer,even the scenery's green light that blends with the actors!!!The plot and the lines are really awful without even the slightest inspiration(At least as a thriller genre movie).Everything that got to do with Poe in the movie,has a shallow and childish approach.The film is full of clise and no thrilling.If you want to watch a funny b-movie for a relaxing evening with friends then go for it you will enjoy it (As I Did) but there's no way to take this film seriously!

an imaginative tale of the modern day Poe's and Ushers, with some very good acting and a well done script all add up to a flick that was far better than it's straight to video fate. Katherine Heigl is gorgeous as well as talented, and the superb Jeremy London (Party of Five's Griffin) puts in a great performance as the haunted writer who may or not be all there. Interesting that they wove in bits of pieces of Hitchcock's Suspicion as well, come to think of it, if they were going to do a remake of that classic flick, Heigl and London's chemistry would serve them well. Sadly, 99% of the folks renting flicks these days have no idea who Poe was, and will not get most of this flick's storyline....too bad for them. 7 out of 10 stars, good job all around, the major subtraction being that York Video used the same house where this takes place in their laugher/slasher/thriller Scream Bloody Murder, weirdly enough, I rented both of them on the same trip!!!