#THINGS HEARD AND SEEN REVIEWS MOVIE#
#THINGS HEARD AND SEEN REVIEWS PROFESSIONAL#

Just as the women of the house are doomed to gruesome ends, the men are fated to reveal their cruel natures. The dark, violent side of his personality is amplified by the influence of Ella's husband's ghost. George's manipulative ways are revealed throughout Things Heard & Seen as he cheats on, lies to, and gaslights Catherine.

The ghost of Ella's husband also haunts the home, which is made clear when George mimicks some of his actions.

During the event, she learns that Ella isn't the only spirit in the house, and it's implied that the second spirit is a malevolent one. In order to learn more about Ella's spirit, Catherine holds a seance to try and communicate with her. While, even after the film's end, none of the women in the ghost story have yet to survive the curse, their predecessors' faith ensures they are not alone at the times of their deaths.Įven after freshly viewing Things Heard & Seen, what really happens to George is a tad unclear. While Catherine isn't familiar with Swedenborg until she moves into her new home, Things Heard & Seen makes a point to mention that she firmly believes in ghosts, despite her husband's mockery. This, of course, is partially due to the fact that they followed the teachings of Swedish theologian Emanuel Swedenborg - who, ironically (in relation to the film's themes), claimed to have the ability to converse with spirits. She finds an old bible dating back to the 1800s tracking the family deaths of the previous homeowners, and Catherine and the audience learn that the previous wives' deaths were deemed ' damned' by their husbands. Unbeknownst to Amanda Seyfried's character of Catherine, the women who have lived in her house are actually known to be cursed.

#THINGS HEARD AND SEEN REVIEWS MOVIE#

Related: Why The Best Story In Stephen King's Night Shift Has No Movie Adaptation The women are presented as genuinely good people, ones that are/were, presumably (if the former two were anything like Catherine), sensitive and deep-feeling individuals who aren't treated with proper human respect, let alone cherished for the rich nature of their souls. They're all tethered by their unfortunate situations in life, specifically the plight and victimization they receive within their marriages. But their connection runs on a spiritual plane as well the ring symbolizes a sort of unfortunate fate that is similarly passed down for generations of wives within the old New York farmhouse. But even considering this, Durkin's film had a more substantial threat than a film billing itself as a horror story.Physically, each of the wives in Things Heard & Seen are connected through an old ring that was unintentionally passed down to each of them. Of course, 'Things Heard & Seen' is adapted from a novel about the interior workings of a would-be psychopath, and it's shorn of any of the satire that made 'The Nest' such an unexpected gem.

Although not a horror film, Durkin had a better handle on making the imposing, ghostly home the family moved into feel genuinely unnerving, as well as offering a more incisive study of a man intent on digging a deeper hole for himself with each bad decision.

As a secret George was hiding from his new employer comes out in the open, I was left reminded of one of last year's most underrated films, Sean Durkin's 'The Nest,' another tale set in the 1980s about a man who forces his family to move with him for an ill-fated career opportunity.

#THINGS HEARD AND SEEN REVIEWS PROFESSIONAL#

Up until here, the film's best moments are when it deviates from its ghost story inclinations to become a darkly comic portrait of a man who's ruining his personal and professional life based on his own hubris.

Things heard and seen reviews