Before morning, one of the girls is dead, leaving the others wondering what they may have awakened. Synopsis: At an elite boarding school for girls, six friends jokingly engage in a late night ritual, calling forth the spirit of a dead former student who reportedly haunts their halls. The director hasn’t said whether he’ll make more, but he has plenty of material: Poirot appears in 33 novels by Christie, as well as two plays and 51 short stories. Gallery of 12 movie poster and cover images for Seance (2021). In an age of Knives Out mysteries and “ See How They Run,” which cheekily tweak the conventions of the genre, Branagh’s films are sterling examples of an increasingly obsolete form of straight-faced whodunit. Set in post-World War II Venice, this is the director’s third Christie adaptation, after “ Murder on the Orient Express” in 2017 and last year’s “ Death on the Nile.” Once again, Branagh plays Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, all extravagant mustache and Sherlockian powers of deduction, who comes out of retirement to solve the murder of a guest at a seance he’s reluctantly attending. Now playing in theaters, available on demand and on digital platforms.They don’t make ’em like this anymore: an old-school murder mystery, based on the 1969 novel “ Hallowe’en Party” by the maestra of the genre, Agatha Christie, and featuring a stellar cast, including Michelle Yeoh, Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Camille Cottin and Kenneth Branagh. The characters are in search of a spirit from the great beyond "Seance" is in search of a voice to call its own. “Seance” may play easier for audiences unfamiliar with some of the horror movies it’s referencing, or maybe those viewers who don’t mind watching more of the same kind of stories, but the movie lacks a certain sense of personality or signature, be it from the director or the main star. It's like an erratic shakeup that distances the viewer from the movie itself. The fisheye lens is also not consistently used at certain points or from certain perspectives, like if it were a ghost watching over the scene. Some shots seem unsteady, some look a touch out-of-focus. But what we really lose are the details in the image, like different aspects of the characters, the production design of the academy, and even some of the action sequences. There’s a fuzzy quality to some of the images, and a messy use of a fisheye lens to create some sense of distortion. The academy is always under-lit and most scenes take place at night. Unfortunately, Karim Hussain’s dark cinematography offers no bright spots either. There’s no stakes in this for her until an impossible and convenient explanation at the end which also deprives the story from a shot of much needed tension. While others in the group are varying degrees of hostile towards Camille or even switching loyalties, her unfazed stare and cold presence adds nothing to the mix. Her emotionless reactions and mumbled lines linger over scenes like a dark cloud, never raining or clearing, just hovering. The same goes for Waterhouse’s wooden performance, which much of “Seance” centers on. Inspired by so many suspenseful and original scripts from other directors, it’s strange that Barrett’s feature debut feels so hollow. Even the movie’s title and credit front brings to mind the pink scrolling type used for Sofia Coppola’s “ The Beguiled” remake. The movie even spends a few minutes in a haphazard dance class led by a stern teacher who could fit in with the coven of Dario Argento’s film. The academy itself seems like a sketch drawing of the dance academy in “Suspiria,” where young women also have a tendency of disappearing and meeting violent deaths. Its not a pastiche, but homage to a specific type of film that still carves its own. It later uses the masks in a somewhat similar fashion to the animal masks in “You’re Next.” The mysterious Camille also shares some similarities with Erin ( Sharni Vinson), the main character of “You’re Next,” in that she too can fight back against mysterious masked strangers. During “Seance,” the audience is treated to one class lecture to explain the girls’ fascination with Japanese Noh theater-inspired masks. Barrett, who broke out writing " The Guest" and incidentally " You're Next," either doesn’t mind or doesn’t think the audience can spot the similarities. The movie relies on referential and in this case self-referential callbacks. Its main characters are underdeveloped, reducing the school girls into mean girl tropes, being mean just for the sake of being mean. “Seance” channels the spirits of “ Suspiria,” “ Mean Girls,” and “You’re Next” but never seems to become a monster with its own identity.
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