Hellen
I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Numerootno
A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
Seraherrera
The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
pete-563
This was well acted especially by the two female leads. However, the twists were overdone...especially Celia Imrie as a Psycho. She being a doctor how come she did not know Mr Van Huet was properly dead!?Other characters, Sophie ward's first husband and his second wife didn't instill belief, when all others did. Also, Mr Van Huet also became a sudden Psycho, killing Michael Elphick(not wholly sure why, was Mr Elphick in on his "death") and, so the viewer, may believe at the end going to kill Sophie Myles.If it had not gone slightly over the top and crappy other characters, it could have been a really eerie/mystery film in the old Gothic style.It's a shame to the male world that Sophie Ward is a lesbian. But Overall enjoyable.
Ivan McKeon
The headmistress of an all-girl boarding school discovers her art-teacher husband is having an affair with a pupil. The husband disappears leaving his wife and the girl alone in the rambling old-school buildings during a school break.On paper this sounds like a good premise for a creepy thriller. In reality what we get is a series of unlikely killings, red-herrings a-plenty and an uneven tone that never pulls the viewer in to the story.The biggest problem is the timid, anaemic direction for which writer Merlin Ward himself must take the blame. This is clearly a case of failing to identify the target audience. Is this an afternoon TV movie or a late-night thriller? In trying to hedge his bets Ward misses both targets. Clearly frightened of "Lolita" comparisons, he has Sophia Myles portray the schoolgirl at the heart of the story as the blandest of blondes. In similar vain, he makes only the merest of hints as to why headmistress Veronica Van Huet (an otherwise excellent performance by Sophie Ward) would not have had the girl expelled immediately.The ending piles on the unlikely events thick and fast but fails to provide a satisfying explanation for them. In truth it's probably not as bad as I've made it sound, but it is unsatisfying to see a missed opportunity to make a better movie. If only the Coen Brothers had been in charge this could have been a first-rate black comedy.
Oct
In the 1970s this modest entry would have been a 60-minute TV episode from an anthology such as Brian Clemens's "Thriller" or "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense". To make it feature-length, too many false endings have been tacked on; but the substance is just about intriguing enough to keep a late-night television viewer (if not, apparently, a British distributor) watching to the positively final climax.A girls' boarding school at half term affords plenty of shots of the heroine, Sophia Myles, creeping along deserted corridors and entering empty rooms, or being walked in on by a trio of sinister older women. Miss Myles, very much in the buxom English rose mould of Kate Winslet, acquits herself competently without lurching into the irritating extremes of scream queen on the one hand or dopey wide-eyed dupe on the other: she projects intelligence as well as courage. Sophie Ward as her steely headmistress and Celia Imrie-- in a role as an art-dealing doctor which is outside her normal persona as a glamorous but trustworthy Scotch matron-- keep audiences guessing about their motives. The men are not as satisfactory. Sophia's object of adulterous affection, an American art teacher married to Ms Ward, is less a character than a McGuffin. Michael Elphick, sadly bloated in his last big-screen appearance, has little to do. The soundtrack is too replete with creepy music: the natural sounds of a big old building in the depths of the English countryside could have been used more. There are a few wince-making genre clichés, such as Sophia flinching when a sheet is pulled back and she has to ID a disfigured corpse. But this is a British suspenser which keeps its language clean, aims above the gut and avoids mid-Atlanticism. It deserved better than a late-night BBC1 premiere without even a write-up in the 'Radio Times'; if the BBC had produced it as a TV movie, they would have talked it up.
clarebear667
I saw this when it was on the BBC the other day and thought the synopsis sounded pretty good. I thought that the aspects of a horror film were there but realistic. So many times have some occurrences in horror films been so coincidental. This was believable. I really did feel for Louise and how lonely she was. I liked the fact that you never really knew what was happening and even at the end you were still left guessing. I was confused by some of the characters and found their development a little hazy. This was especially so with veronica and imogen who i didn't understand. I also found a few too many twists. I think the best part of the film was Sophia Myles who was very good. The best thing was that I saw Celia Imrie two days after I saw this down Regent St. I don't know why I hadn't heard of this film before, its better than most films in the cinema.