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Ghost Canyon

'The Marsh'
(Forest Whitaker, Gabrielle Anwar, Justin Louis, et al / DVD / R / 2007 / Sony Pictures Classics)

Overview: A young, beautiful, but stressed out children's writer seeks out a holiday in the country, but becomes the lead character in a supernatural mystery she must solve to save her life.

DVD Verdict: OK, before I get deeply into this, I think it should be known that - for my money, at least - this movie is very decent but kind of dragged on ... in the beginning of the film. You know, it kind of took a while to get going, but if you can push past that you're in for a nice treat. Sure it was (kinda) scary at times, but not frightening enough to keep your heart pounding and palms sweating out of fear and anticipation!

As for the meat of the actual film's plot, well, Claire Holloway (Gabrielle Anwar) sees horrific visions of a child running scared in the swamp. And although she doesn't know why such a vision keeps haunting her thoughts and dreams, it soon becomes very apparent that the child is trying to get her attention. With the sightings becoming more dramatic and more intense each time, Claire seeks professional medical help hoping the frightening scenes she envisions will soon come to an end.

The fact that she is an author - an illustrator of children's books with her latest book being about a little girl who has a bad experience in the swamp - seems to have been completely been erased from her mind at these early stages!!! This HUGE connection - duh!! - of course does light up in her mind as we progress, but not until a string of unusual circumstances begin to reveal a shocking secret from her past.

So, her trip to change-her-scenary and venture forth to the Rose Marsh Farmhouse where she hopes to free her thoughts from the disturbing visions that now plague her is planned and executed. FUNNILY ENOUGH, once there she sees a striking resemblance to the old house to one she drew and illustrated in her last book! Other strange duplications are also evident as we progress through the movie ... and yet she still does this venture all alone, and surprisingly calm!!

Of course it's not long before her frightful visions return and become more graphic and disturbing than in the past. Aided by the town's newspaper publisher and editor, Noah Pitney (Justin Louis), he tries to help her get to the bottom of what is causing her troubling visions. So, in the end this movie may follow along the lines of many, many known ghosty-thriller-suspense flicks, but still feels fresh; which is probably due in no small part to some very good acting for what was obviously a low-budget flick! This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Behind-The-Scenes' Featurette.

www.SonyPictures.com





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