
Marnie Watson (Famke Jansen) is allowed to move back into her home after serving some jail time for killing her abusive ex-husband. The catch? Well, she is under house arrest. The film’s tag line is:
Till Death Do Us Part Wasn’t Enough
Already, you get that feeling that her dead husband will be having some screen time. This is a little independent film that was quite surprising in that it kept me watching. There are a lot of instances where some films, especially those with an abundant use of CGI, cannot keep my attention for very long. Let me rephrase that, a lot of horror movies with CGI. This is where this film, I think failed. Because it is a ghost film, the filmmakers felt it necessary to actually show the ghost on screen… a lot! Instead of just leaving it up to the imagination of the viewer, there was just too much disclosure.
There could be a small sense of claustrophobia as the entire movie takes place in one location, namely, our heroine’s imprisoned home. I didn’t care much for any of the other characters (maybe about 4 or 5 other people in total) except for Famke’s character Marnie. One cannot help but feel that way towards her being a battered, now lonely and isolated, woman who is being haunted by the very man who tormented her when he was alive. The only other dominant character is that of Detective Shanks (Bobby Cannavale) who you start to hate almost immediately then tries to redeem himself at the end of the movie! Nah, don’t think so. Doesn’t work that way.
There were a few moments that could be deemed as scary or maybe just creepy. But, unfortunately, the CGI’d ghost took any sense of fear away as it

You don't mess with dead man's wife!
made me snicker each time it revealed itself. Although, I must admit that there was a pretty brutal beat-down scene by the “hands” of the ghost. As far as memory can recall, haven’t seen anything quite like it and had me ‘oooh-ing’ and ‘ahhh-ing’!
In the end, the film had good potential to be so much better and there a couple of unnecessary scenes such as Marnie finding a secret passage under the floor boards which leads to ex-husbands’ stash of money. That was clearly put into place for use later in the script which I don’t want to give away. There is another scene where Det. Shanks gets a warrant for the arrest of another character but there is really no clear indication or reason as to why he even got one. Still, I cannot say that this was a bad movie. But, it could have been better if it was kept more psychological rather than visual.
**/*****
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