jampotstudios
I would describe The Disappeared less as a horror and more an exploration of how many genre tropes can be aimed for and missed by so wide a margin. If you take this film as the latter, then you'll enjoy it as much as you would Green Lantern. If you're looking for a thrilling psychological horror ghost story, then I'm sorry to disappoint you but this isn't your movie.What starts as an interesting ghost story quickly develops into a humdrum ghost story, into a strung- out one liner from Friends. Ever seen the episode where Joey says the latest film he will appear in must be good because it contains the line "She's been deeeeaaad for ten yeeeaaaars"? The Disappeared is a horror that feels as if such a twist is clever. It isn't.All in all, this film is predictable, poorly written, and I can safely say that I didn't care about any of the underdeveloped characters. I can't see why it's garnered so many good reviews...well, weirder things have happened, such as every pointless and nonsensical plot 'twist' in The Disappeared.All in all, don't watch it. It's one of, if not the worst, movie I have ever had the misfortune of seeing.
Catharina_Sweden
I did not have much expectations about this movie, because my experience is that ghost stories set in modern urban settings, very seldom meet up to the standards of classic ghost stories set in old castles or manors and the like. But it turned out to be surprisingly good, if one takes it for what it is.The photo was bleak and the environments were depressing, but this was of course part of the story. You can also see it as a statement of the awful conditions many poor kids grow up in - even in our rich, civilized western countries. It was a little difficult to follow the plot, as one often did not know what was real, what was supernatural events (ghosts, premonitions, telepathy etc.), what was dreams or hallucinations etc.. But of course - that was also part of the story.The mystery in itself is engaging and exciting, and the solution to it is quite unexpected but still not contrived. Well worth watching!
e-Liza1
*****MAY CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS****A boy and his father have a difficult relationship and they live together in a small flat in a big high-rise block of ugly, apartments for unliked people, that is alienating and depersonalising. Wasn't there a movement to get rid of these high-rises about forty or fifty years ago? Has society regressed in THIS way ALSO, since Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" came out in 1971?!So, anyway, it is all so sad and depressing. The unlikable teenage boy's younger brother has disappeared while playing in one of the concrete playgrounds attached to these apartments, and there is so much unresolved grief accompanied by unexplained and suspicious circumstances that it is depressing to everyone around them, as well as to themselves, and is associated with anger and violent emotional responses everywhere. And on top of the inhuman architectural depravity there is an overbearing atmosphere of threats of being further degraded by the mental health system, which seems to have goody-goody government and church-employed community-vampires preying on these people - who are being kept like sardines in a human warehouse 24 hours a day - popping in to see if "everything's alright?"; "Are you alright?" being the constantly repeated question in this environment - people nervously checking on each other all the time.Throughout this movie there is a prevailing and constant fear - or paranoia - being expressed, of experiences that are outside of "normal" human experience, so when the boy begins hearing and seeing things that aren't there (from other people's perspectives), he is just one step away from being turned-in, abducted, and kept kidnapped indefinitely, by the local mental hospital. To add to this tension, which gets so bad that his best friend calls him a "psycho" and kicks him out of his flat in paranoid-terror when he turns to him to talk about his psychic experiences, unable to communicate with his father, there is also a widespread adoption of a culture of patriarchal suppression of selfhood, so that everywhere there are people releasing and expressing their personal hangups in violent and difficult emotional outbursts.***POSSIBLE, BUT VERY CRYPTIC SPOILER IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH**** I do think this film has something important to say about society's ills being obviously and intentionally inflicted from above due to unadmitted-to pressures and society's self-censorship. There is also a parallel Christian patriarchal religious dimension - you will see if you watch this movie - in which Christianity (like the mental-health system employees) pretends to be the saviour of the soul, while, in reality, being the disease that it claims to cure and the imprisoner of the soul ... I think the symbolism in this film is talking about evil, per se, and the preying Anglican Church counsellor's use of the fiery inversion of the Christian cross as a symbol of pure evil in the film is an IRONIC inversion, just as is the mental health system claiming to be the saviour of the people that THEY prey upon and whom THEY mentally torture - as human-cargo in THEIR concrete prisons.Into this dismal and claustrophobic setting comes the need for resolution and understanding of what is happening around and to the protagonist; a psychic need for truth and meaning, and a search for a reason, perhaps the identity of a killer or killers; and a need to know the fate of a missing sibling.As social-commentary I do applaud the making of this movie, for its EDUCATIVE value. But it is painful to witness the constant false-angst, this pot, boiling with emotional pain, and the personal hangups that these people maintain through lack of honesty with their own inner-thoughts and their true-identities - the protagonist, himself, is no more than a crippled cardboard cut-out, not a true human being at all! The music in this movie only makes it worse - oh, pull the heartstrings! Why use this awful, crappy and oh, so patronising music?! What are you inflicting it upon us for?! Two other examples I can easily and convincingly suggest, from Britain, are the movie "Flood"(2008) and the new "Doctor Who" (from 2005), and just about every drama, especially made for Australian television (Federal Government-required ocker-brainwashing) made in Australia, such as the recent movie "Sanctum"(2011), which appears to be struggling in torment and agony with issues of paedophilia.But social-commentary alone does not make good entertaining horror-movies, I am sorry. And to make it worse, this movie is blatantly copying the brilliantly original "The Sixth Sense" (1999) - but in a deprived, violent setting, where boys are committed to the pointless, banal, stupid, destructive, malicious and unreasonable obsession and self-deception of proving their manhood, to the mutually assured mental and psychic destruction of every human being in the neighbourhood. So it is both visually and conceptually unappealing, AND repelling, AND, to top it off, derivative. And I found that to be a bad flaw with the ending, which seems to compete with "The Sixth Sense", but, unlike "The Sixth Sense" does not leave you, the audience, with a chilling realization - the ending is more like a one-line twist, a throw-away line that is only MILDLY surprising, and no shock, as it is presumably intended to be, at all.
Denicio_Del_Toro
Well acted, nicely shot, and with a solid score, this is a decent feature. It's only real flaws are an extremely derivative, and occasionally confused, plot; and some slightly clumsy dialogue at times.It looks good, without being spectacular, which entirely suits its council estate setting. Combined with excellent performances from the leads, it could almost work as a pure kitchen sink drama. Despite not being given much to say, Harry Treadaway and Greg Wise are a convincingly troubled father and son. The support is also broadly good; Tom Felton is particularly notable.The troubles come with the exasperatingly unoriginal plot - it borrows and from a whole selection of similar films. The good news is that it does choose some of the best to steal from; the trouble that it isn't good enough to stand up to these classics. However, it holds together well, at least until the latter stages, when a few too many extraneous ingredients are thrown into the pot.Broadly, a decent effort if not outstanding. Given the mechanics, I would be interested to see future work from the team behind it - they just need some more original ideas to start with.
