Beneath (2006)
6/10
Confused direction leads to questionable thriller
29 October 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Beneath starts with one of those implausible accidents where a car that doesn't seem to be driving too fast hits some boxes of earth that have been left out on the road (as you do) causing them to skid and crash.

Kristy (Heroine) is thrown from the car while her sister Vanessa (on the non-impacted side) appears to be trapped and then the fuel tank explodes.

One could say that Vanessa should never have let Kristy drive, as she was under age, and if she was going to let her then possibly not standing in the passenger seat whooping may have helped. Possibly not.

Kristy is heading to the funeral of the caretaker, Joseph, who seemed to have cared for her after her sisters death (except we know she isn't really because we see many shots of her burned skin - and alive). In fact Kristy thinks she was buried alive - there can't be far fewer hints that she is alive can there? At times the script seems to have little idea where it is going. Lines which may have once meant to establish something, the doctors family with the mine they had trouble closing and John Locke's mother who speaks the "ancient tongue" - a mix between a number of European languages - all seem to be badly devised red herrings or more likely writers ideas that were never edited out.

Kristy however wants to find out the truth and Nora Zehetner (Kristy) really tries to get something out of a stodgy script. However with John acting all evil you feel the actor has read to the end of the script and found out that he is... well evil, or mad, or just badly written as he is acted.

Kristy also suffers from hallucinations and this for me is one of the main points that lets the film down. If her hallucinations were really this bad would she have been let out of the mental hospital, especially when some of her visions see her causing people harm or blacking out for 2 hour periods only to be found fitting in your friends back garden (a friend you are staying with because you forgot to ask beforehand if you could stay at your brother-in-laws place).

Other questions arise as to whether school websites really do carry peoples personal details (I'll have to check my own for phone numbers), how much light can a mobile phone really produce and why Mr Wells uses a shotgun to shoot at birds. My favorite is the fact that the police take Kristy at night and the next shot she is in the back seat in full daylight. Were they taking her for a cruise round town? Finally when Vanessa is found to be alive (gasp, shock) she has one of those pro-active kill spree agendas which is never truly explained by the plot.

There are positives to be taken here and it does not outstay its welcome however Beneath really does little to complement itself either, bar Nora Zehetner and a reasonable music score.
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