Things Heard & Seen

 3/4

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, James Norton, Rhea Seehorn, F. Murray Abraham, Ana Sophia Heger

Not Rated (probable R for a Scene of Strong Violence, Some Terror, Language, Sexuality and Drug Use)

The thing that horror movies have in common is that the past will never truly die.  It's always there, waiting to strike the perfect target.

Like most mysteries, "Things Heard & Seen" works best when you don't know where the plot is going.  So I'll be vague.  Catherine (Seyfried) and George Claire (Norton) are a young couple who have just moved to upstate New York.  George has just accepted a teaching position at Saginaw College and has selected an old home to move into.  It has a dark past, but George keeps this hidden from his wife so as to not upset her.  But soon creepy things are happening to Catherine, and the more she investigates, the more she fears her new home.

A first impulse would be to describe "Things Heard & Seen" as a horror film, but that's just a small part of the film.  It does involve the supernatural (of a fashion) and there are some spooky scenes, but they are details that are fed into the main thrust of the plot.  For the most part, this is a drama about a deteriorating marriage.  Things are stable between Catherine and George, but perhaps not happy.  But after the move, things take a turn for the worse and eventually they turn rancid.

Movies like this demand a lot from their actors.  They need to convincingly play characters who change in ways that we don't anticipate.  It's a tricky thing to do.  But the two leads, the always lovely Amanda Seyfried and up and coming British actor James Norton, are excellent.  Of the two, Norton has the trickier role because he has more to hide.  Seyfried is well-suited to be at the film's nexus as a woman who begins to suspect that all is not right in her world, but doesn't realize the half of it.

Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini have set high bars for themselves with this film.  "Things Heard & Seen" merges the domestic drama with the supernatural, and while it isn't always elegant, it is well done.  They are also good at sleight-of-hand; I didn't know where this film was heading until I was meant to.  Although moments that raise the nape hairs are few (intentionally), the directors pull off such scenes aplomb.  Not only are they creepy, they feel germane to the story.

That being said, it's difficult to imagine a target audience for this film.  Lovers of domestic drama may be turned off by the supernatural subject matter while horror fans may get bored.  I'll just say that it's for lovers of good storytelling.

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