OK, it´s not really my favorite, but it´s number 4 on my all time favorite horror films list, and few people seem to have seen it, and those who did, most seem to hate it. Since this is the first post on this board, I´m not sure someone will ever get to answer this, but if anyone who watched it could give your opinion.
shareHi Matheus, I just watched it last night - came here to see if there were any discussions about it, and found you. :)
I didn't love it but certainly didn't hate it... on the plus side I think (as with so much 70s horror) it was really beautiful, and I liked the ambiguity of it. On the minus side, I thought the story seemed confused and the pacing was odd. Often I don't mind those two things, but in this case the result was to diminish my interest/involvement in the film, sadly.
I'm sure you already noticed this, but I thought it was very strongly reminiscent of two horror films released just 3-4 years earlier, The Other (1972) and Don't Look Now (1973). And strangely, Netflix's jacket description claims it's an adaptation of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, which it isn't.
________________________________________
I don't come from hell. I came from the forest.
I think this film has been wrongly marketed. The similarities with "Don't Look Now", "The Other" and hell, even "The Turn of the Screw", are obvious, but at the same time, they are also very different affairs. "A Whisper in the Dark" seems to suffer when compared to these other films/books, when it works on it's own terms. What I really liked about it is that it actually is about the struggle of a parent over the death of a child, and while this theme has been used in other works, it's mostly used as backdrop rather than the actual plot. Seeing it through that perspective, it works perfectly. Camilla's struggle to overcome the death of Luca is truly hearthbreaking, and extremely convincing, specially during the kissing game scene and the whole dream sequence (two of my favorite scenes). I also loved how it seems that the "invisible ghost" has a different face for each character, representing their own hidden skeletons in the closet.
For me, the film's two big flaws are: Joseph Cotten seems completely out of place and uninvolved; and the comical relief scenes with Lucretia Love's character are very annoying. I also can see where you're coming from in terms of the script, but I felt it worked within the context of the film. It reminded me a bit of some Fellini films, particularly "Juliet of the Spirits" (in it's narrative approach more so than filmmaking style) as it seems to focus on a series of loosely related events during a period of somebody's (or a group of people's) life, after which she manages to come to terms with an existential crisis.
"A Whisper in the Dark" is a film one must watch more than once to fully appreciate. I myself didn't like it much after my first viewing, but on the next day I suddenly had the urge to rewatch it, and thus it grew on me. I've watched it about 10 times so far and it only keeps getting better. Maybe if you give it another go, you'll end up enjoying it more.
[deleted]