Half Light (2006)

Sex :
Violence :
Director Craig Rosenberg Reviewer :
Writers Craig Rosenberg
Starring Demi Moore, Henry Ian Cusick, Beans El-Balawi, Kate Isitt
Genre Thriller
Tagline Believe in the beyond
15 second cap Grieving Chick runs up against some nasty developments in a remote Scottish village
Country

Review

Rachel Carlson, a successful novelist, flees to a small remote Scottish village following the death of her son. She leaves behind her husband, and takes with her an enormous guilt trip about being responsible for the death. If only she had of taken time out to play with her son when she said she would, if only she had of ensured the gate by the river was locked.

She's trying to get back into writing, but a few things are distracting her. Is her son haunting her, what's with the lighthouse dude, and why does everyone speak in gaelic around her? Much plot twisting ensues. Let's go check out that lighthouse ... they have horses after all ....

Half Light is the sort of movie that separates the movie lover from the critic. The movie is slow, labours it's points, and throws in a lot of stuff which should have been edited out. Clearly we're lost about half of the readers by now, cool! End of the day, this movie has a lot more in the credit side of the ledger than the debit.

Director/writer Rosenberg has made one weird movie with Half Light. The flick ranges across genres without ever settling in and staking it's claim in any one of them. We have drama, a ghost story, revenant action that the Japanese would be happy with, a thriller, and to top things off a love story. The movie nods at all sorts of genres, and l guess that's why the critics are panning the movie, you simply can't pigeon hole this one. Strangely this is a Brit movie with an Aussie director and a yank lead. No wonder people are down on it, you just can't trust that sort of a mixture. To make matters worse the lead is also a female actor who has taken time out of the industry to raise her family. Shocked and stunned over here, she should never ever be allowed in front of a camera again. What was she thinking!

Rosenberg starts this movie on slow heat, and simply let's it simmer throughout. Either this is very careful film making, or the dude has no concept that the modern audience wants things exploding, rapid gun fire, and by heck some kung fu action going down. God knows, you need to wait approx 10 minutes before each major plot point surfaces. And don't try fobbing us off with that outstanding background scenery, we want some kick arse action going down.

I was intensely angered by the local customs, dialogue, and music shown on my screen. Come on Rosenberg, where's me hip hop music and washed up rappers. What's with this celtic music stuff! Everyone knows a movie needs some hip black dude, spitting out the one liners, and limbering up for some magnum mayhem. And why the heck didn't we have Dirty Harry replacing that Scottish copper. Thank god Miami Vice is almost here.

What could have been an interesting ghost story sort of loses it's way to the seance

What was really irritating me was that the movie threw some surprises in my direction. What was with those final twenty minutes? Couldn't they find some long haired young chick like in those Ring movies, that would have been cool. Yeah Samara, they should have put her in this movie rather than the other ghosts. That would have owned! At least Rosenberg had the dead kid popping up when you least expected it, pity he dropped that angle by the final half hour or so. And thank god we got the fridge magnets re-arranging themselves into words. I was almost ready to forgive the movie when that happened.

Probably the worse aspect of the movie for me was the fact that Rosenberg made me actually think about what was happening, and why. Where were those neon signposts, pointing out every idea the movie had to offer. I mean what does the dude think l go to the movies for. I'm not there to think Rosenberg!

Anyone else notice this one drags along? A couple of car chases and aliens would have been cool. Who wants to get into some chick grieving for her lost son and hence being vulnerable. I wanted some psycho slasher on screen every five minutes, and a group of nubile teens to get slaughtered. That's what makes horror movies great. Not this slow build up stuff.

Demi Moore (Rachel Carlson) was horrible in this movie. She emoted all over the place and gave her best performance to date. I wanted some twenty year old actress no one has ever heard of flashing her boobs all over the place. What's the point in having a chick leading in a movie and no topless action going down? That's no how you make a movie.

Don't get me started on the soundtrack. It's all this violin and piano stuff. I wanted some heavy metal, some hip hop, and a huge amount of techno going down.

Half Light is one of those movies you are going to love, or hate with a passion. It's on the back burner throughout, and not a heck of a lot actually happens in it. It crosses genre boundaries without apology, doesn't do what you expect, and keeps the plot twists coming at you. There's a few scare tactics going down, but to be honest they are probably the weakest part of the movie. Rosenberg clearly threw them in during the first half, and then thought better of them as the movie reached the end of shooting.

The camera work is breathtaking in this movie, all about the background scenery, and there's plenty of above average performances to dial into. Demi Moore was simply sensational in this one, though I'm still not forgiving her for earlier movies. If you like The Woman In Black (original) then dial into this movie as quick as you can.

I would recommend Half Light even though it has some weaknesses going down. The movie keeps jumping the track, and isn't consistent in what it attempts to do. There's some nice chills coming at you, but overall the movie isn't a core horror outing. I'm more intrigued here by what Rosenberg was trying to accomplish, than angered by his inability to decide on any one style of movie making. An interesting movie, which though slow, maintains watchability. Didn't see the resolution coming at me, there's more than one twist in the final act.

ScaryMinds Rates this movie as ...

  If only it had of been a straight ghost story.