We spent about half an hour waiting for the Sidewalk short-bus to come around and pick us up so we could head over and see In Memorium before realizing that where we were going was only about 4 blocks away. We walked there in less than ten minutes.
Was it worth it? Totally. In the first five minutes of the movie, the main character, Dennis gives the set-up: He is a struggling filmmaker who was recently diagnosed with terminal bone cancer. Instead of taking chemo, Dennis decides to let the cancer take its course. He is given 3 months and rents a house with his girlfriend, Lily. Being a filmmaker and all Dennis fills the house with motion-activated cameras to document his final days. The hook? The first night the cameras start recording in rooms that are unoccupied. It’s all downhill from there.
Put simply, In Memorium is everything The Blair Witch Project wanted to be, but wasn’t. The premise is gimmicky, yes, but it works. The movie starts off with a good scare and keeps you on the edge of your seat until its disturbing end. Several times the entire theater screamed like little girls and the rest of the time they were ignoring the actors and looking around the screen for ghostly shadows and figures. Ah yes, the actors. Well, they weren’t all that great, but like I said earlier, the audience was too busy being scared to even notice (except for the brother, the scenes he was in were a bit slow). There were several times the audience didn’t even know quite what was going on…they just knew it scared the crap out of them. Some of the scares are the cheap “loud, jumping out at you” type, but there is definitely enough innovative scares and suspense to keep you interested.
It’s making its way on the festival circuit right now looking for distribution. Hopefully, it will find it and In Memorium won’t require its own epitaph (wow, that was bad, wasn’t it?).
Rated: Unrated, but would probably be in the R range for language, bloodletting, and just being pretty darn scary.
[rating:4]