MovieChat Forums > Clara's Deadly Secret (2013) Discussion > Terribly acted/badly directed

Terribly acted/badly directed


Emmanuelle Vaugier's acting was lackluster and unbelievable. She's a wife and mother and former cop who faces various horrible calamities and disturbing events that happen to her husband and kids and the death of an old friend but her reaction is always emotionless and as if she's merely dealing with an annoyance at work.
Her 10 year old starts telling her that she's basically having a psychotic episode by hearing and seeing a dead girl who is her friend who's telling her to hurt people. (Also terribly and unrealistically acted by the child actor). Instead of telling her husband and taking the kid to a psychiatrist or hospital, she just blandly tells her not to make up stories and then asks her older child to spend time with the kid.
Her friend dies and she doesn't even blink. She doesn't seem fazed at all. Her husband gets attacked and she seems mildly concerned for a moment when she finds him but then her affect turns immediately flat. Her tone is monotone and expressionless when asking how he is and she readily and calmly scoops her kid up and leaves, without even trying to see her husband when told that he's going to recover.
Then, when her older daughter is missing overnight, she tries her on the phone many times but despite knowing there have been bizarre killings and that her family may be targeted, she doesn't do much except ask that a car be sent over, before getting a gun, going next door and uncovering a host of horrors including her own daughter who is tied up and trapped behind a door. She leaves her there, despite having a phone and a gun, and sneaks back out of the house to avoid detection from the evil neighbor who is returning.
When later she has to battle for her life and to protect her kids, she barely breaks a sweat and calmly recovers and collects her daughters.
This actress wasn't the only one who showed a flat affect throughout the movie. The people playing her daughters and husband were equally terrible.
It was the lack of any reasonable fear or concern or panic and the unrealistic reactions of the main actress that ruined what could've been a fun movie.
Terribly directed.

reply