Trespassing (2004)

Mark, a graduate student is working on a major tome on myths, and after interviewing the psychiatrist (the great Kurtwood Smith in an awkward little bit part near the beginning and end) who was treating Carl Bryce, a boy who brutally murdered his parents, decides to go on a road trip to the site where it all happened on the chance that the land there might be cursed, an urban myth that would help with his book. Once there with a few friends in tow, they discover that they may not be alone in this generic & bland slasher film.While the opening 'prolog' scene showed promise for the rest of the film, I found my hopes quickly dashed as it turned out highly derivative and had characters who talk and yell to no end that were bland and hard to care about. Yea there's a good scene here and there in the film. But the movie as a whole just failed to work for me. Thankfully I just saw it via Netflix-online view so the only thing I really waisted was my time.My Grade: D+

Strap a handycam to the back of a frightened squirrel an set it loose in a darkened house populated by amateur theater guild actors, speaking dialog written by a 12 year-old, and the result is... this movie. Yup - the "aim the movie at the lowest common denominator" formula is still alive and well. I grew tired of the deliberate camera shaking, extreme closeups that left you wondering what the hell you were looking at, and a plot that's been done too many times to be remotely entertaining. The only thing that scared me about this movie is the fact that someone somewhere actually thought it was good enough to invest in and release. Scarier still, is the fact that people actually paid money to watch it (I saw it on cable, by the way). Overall, I'd say this qualified as mindless drivel - but then, does that even matter these days?

Like some others the only reason I rented this movie was because of Estella Warren. Not just because she is a hot babe, but because she seems to be trying to develop into an interesting actress, however, she also seems to be struggling with the types of films and roles she is offered.Overall Evil Remains is a mess. Most scenes are filmed in natural light which especially in the indoor scenes makes everything hard to see and action very difficult to follow. The film to which it bears the greatest resemblance for the first hour or so is not the slasher movies to which it is regularly compared, but the very strange and disturbing Session 9, which also concerns a group of people trying to function in place of great spiritual disturbance.For some reason the male and female characters are completely separate for all of the crucial action. Perhaps this is related to the alleged lesbian theme, which is never developed. I still have no idea what happens to any of the male characters except two of them seem to die, of course that's hardly news in a movie of this kind. I'll return to the third male character later.Meanwhuile the two women wander the woods and find lots of bear traps, the function of which is never explained. This keeps the women away from the house so they can conveniently return to be threatened by something? I'm still not sure what. Anyway during the whole film Estella Warren's Christy is the only character who ever seems to act in a rational matter, making her sort of the equivalent of Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloweeen.I think that one major issue with Estella's career is that she almost always plays a strong, sensible woman who happens to be lovely, For some reason this combination seems offputting, perhaps even threatening, to the teenage boys at whom most Hollywood films are targeted. In every movie she's been in, except for The Cooler, Estella has been the strongest and most memorable character. In the wretched remake of Planet of the Apes she was the frustrated young human who had to watch Marky Mark disappear up his own asshole. In Driven she played the only actual woman present. In Tangles she played a funny sexy girl caught up in the head games of a trio of self-involved neurotics. In Kangaroo Jack she appears to be the only character who can think things out. Now in Evil Remains she is again the strong woman faced with insanity and irrational behavior.(Spoiler Alert) The intelligence of her character means that she is the only apparent survivor. My suspicion was that Mark was the actual killer, possessed by the spirit of the house, or some such nonsense. He is the only other character you never see die. This would also explain the professor's odd warnings about "being sure of your reasons for going" at the beginning and end of the film. Having said this, I hate the ending of this film. The implication that Christy, as the only survivor, would be accused of all the deaths and locked up is nihilistic and does not conform to the spirit of such films.To sum up this film wants to be more than it is. It is not really frightening to anyone used to such films. Like Session 9, what it is is dreary and depressing.

This is quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen. The cinematography was beyond poor. It seemed like it was shot in someone's backyard. All of the characters were static, one-dimensional, and totally unbelievable. It was full of "writing on the nose." The phrase "little brother" was used way too much. Most of the audience got up and left during this film in the theatre I was watching it in. I've never regretted seeing a movie more. It just was a bad movie.Estella and Ashley did horrible. Ashley especially seemed to have no investment.I've seen episodes of the Three stooges with better plot lines.