Search - The Attic on DVD

So bad, it's not even funny!

OKube | 01/08/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Terrible (over-)acting, very low production values, unimaginative direction and camera work, ridiculously bad dialog plus an even dumber "story". Buying this ultra-cheap wannabe-thriller is not even a waste of your money, you'll also regret the 80 minutes you spent subjecting yourself to this dreck. So don't even think about it!"

What a bomb!

Mary Stewart Putney | Roanoke, VA, USA | 04/06/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Stupid, stupid, stupid...85 minutes of my life wasted watching this stinker that I'll never get back - please don't make the same mistake!"

Horrible Horror wannabe

dirkdiggler99 | Palm Beach, FL | 07/12/2008

(1 out of 5 stars)

"HUGE waste of money/time...
the only thing that kept me watching was laughing at the terrible story/acting.

srsly terribad"

The lights are on. but no one's home.

Robert P. Beveridge | Cleveland, OH | 06/30/2009

(2 out of 5 stars)

"The Attic (Mary Lambert, 2008)

This is another one of those movies with endless promise that failed completely in the execution. Lambert (The In Crowd) gathered together a sterling cast and presented them with a script (by Tom Malloy, also responsible for The Alphabet Killer, co-written with Robert M. Reitano, an Emmy-winning editor) that desperately needed another few rewrites.

In this one, Emma (Elisabeth Moss from TV's Mad Men) and her family--father Graham (John Savage), mother Kim (Catherine Mary Stuart), and mentally challenged brother Frankie (Love 'n Dancing's Tom Malloy)--have moved out to the country. Emma hasn't left the house since the move. Part of it seems to stem from agoraphobia (one of the places the script could have used a bit of work was in illustrating this better), and the other part from an encounter she had in the attic; when exploring, she uncovered a mirror that seemed to show her not a reflection of herself, but an entirely different person who looks exactly like her. Her inability to leave the house handicaps her when it comes to investigating, which becomes necessary when weird things start happening, but she finds a tenuous ally in a local detective, John Trevor (Sex and the City's Jason Lewis). Together, the two of them have to find out what the deal is with Emma's supposed twin before the twin comes for her family, and for Emma herself.

While the ending is pretty predictable (and the plot twist in the final scene you should be able to see coming from a mile off), that doesn't necessarily make for a bad movie; if there had been anything before that to offset it. There was certainly enough of a chance for that to happen, with so much starpower here, but everyone comes off flat and uninspiring. I normally like John Savage in just about anything, but even he couldn't save this one. Elisabeth Moss gets a lot of screen time, and she's gorgeous, but that's about the only thing I can say to recommend this. **
"