Fingerprints (2006)

I enjoyed it. The mother was a bit too much but overall not a bad flick fer a rainy Sunday lazy day

This movie would have been so much better if they had just focused on the paranormal aspect and turned it into a Sci-Fi thriller, instead of a slasher film. The mystery surround the towns past is truly fascinating, but the accompanying slasher part completely takes away from what is otherwise a very good story. Melanie and her family move from the big city to a small town after a recent tragedy. Once there, Melanie becomes obsessed with a local urban legend and decides to discover the truth behind it with the helps of some ghost children. Leah Pipes gives an absolutely amazing performance as Melanie. I hate it when such a great performance goes to waste because it's in some limit release horror film. I'd never even heard of her before this film, but she was so engaging and really got me into this film. Her sister in the movie is played by Kristin Cavallari, who is possibly the best looking girl I've ever seen. She didn't have as big a role in the movie, but she was so supportive and sweet when everyone thought her sister was crazy. Fingerprints seems like a cheesy b-horror movie, with it's poor cinematography and inexperienced supporting cast, but in reality, it's a fantasy story intermingled with a completely unnecessary secondary plot. I really had a love-hate relationship with this movie, because it could have been so much more than it was.

Having read the reviews and seeing the IMDb rating of 4.9 (1312 votes) at the time of writing, I had low expectations of this film. This is a low budget horror that effectively merges a ghost and slasher storyline, as a young girl plagued by visions tries to uncover the secrets behind a decades old bus crash. The film builds a genuine sense of suspense and has enough scares to lift it above the usual low budget horror. This is in no small part due to a hugely likable and confident performance by the lead actress Leah Pipes. The limitations in budget do show in the special effects but if you put this aside it is a very effective and creepy horror film.

I was immediately put off by the opening titles which looked like something done on a cheap home computer. Shortly thereafter, the film starts with a flashback to 1957, and yet the train shown heading towards the school bus is clearly modern - it could have been filmed without showing the actual design of the locomotive. And then the acting begins. The main character Melanie (Leah Pipes) is reunited with her father, who acts like ... an actor selling himself as a doting father. But through all the early put-offs, I watched the whole film. If this had a $1M budget, much of the money must have gone to the most well-known actors, cos it just seemed like the film needed more money for better production. When you lose viewers' ability to believe in what you're showing, it can be an uphill struggle to win back the audience. And, it didn't need so much special effects, but perhaps better cinematography and lighting. The little girl that Melanie routinely encounters could have been filmed with some kind of eerie lighting based on the fact that she's been dead (not spoilers, part of the film plot). Yet we're left guessing whether Melanie actually knows she IS dead in the first third of the movie. The story is simply hurt by some less-than-good film-making. The plot itself kept me curious enough to keep watching the next scene, even after the death of one character, whose acting made me roll my eyes. Melanie and her sister are better than most... their mother made me want to strangle her myself, so she is effective as a rude mother - until she simply goes overboard with her actions later in the film.Yet for the film's underachievement, it still has some moments in which my neck hair stood up. The screenwriter hurt a promising story just enough to call it average, yet still watchable and entertaining enough, and even though I actually didn't mind the core reasons why things happened, I groaned at the very end of the film, which made me want to throw buttered popcorn at my HDTV. I'm just glad I didn't have any at the time.