Better Late Then Never

As Good As It Gets

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

In London, the archaeologist Anna Ash (Gina Philips) is informed by her Professor Joan Holland (Romla Walker) that the excavation site at the Sixteenth Century Ludgate Orphanage, where she is researching the Cult of the Black Priest during the Great Plague, will be demolished on the next morning to contain the contamination since it has been found the Y.pestis in the digging. The stubborn Anna breaks in the building at midnight expecting to find any substantial evidence that could stop the demolition.Meanwhile, four drugged punks hit and run with a stolen car and they hide inside the building. They are haunted and attacked by a ghost and one of them, Clive (Jack Bailey), is wounded. When Anna stumbles with the hoodlums, she realizes that Clive is contaminated and needs help. But soon they find that they are trapped in the building."The Sick House" is a movie with terrible story, screenplay and camera work. The plot is stupid and unoriginal, and it is hard to believe that an intelligent woman would prioritize her research and break in a contaminated place without weaning protective clothing and mask. The camera is awful and to compensate the low-budget, there are many closes and the camera is shaken expecting to give the sensation of chaos, but it never works. The messy and senseless conclusion is also awful, trying to give a dreadful twist to the plot. The only things that seems to work is the false promotion of this movie through many fake reviews. Last but not the least, the Brazilian title is perfect for this film ("The Great Plague"). My vote is two.Title (Brazil): "A Grande Praga" {"The Great Plague")

"Sick House" looks promising on paper but the result is not very good: watching people who are stuck in dark tunnels gets kind of boring after an hour. You've seen movies like this before. Gina Philips is best known for her leading role in the smash hit "Jeeper Creepers" and she is always nice to watch. Besides that, she mostly did television. But rumors are that she will return in Creepers III. The rest of the overall unknown cast is also OK, it really is the story that falls short here. The century old plague story just is not that interesting. Not much thrills or gore either. A missed opportunity, could have been so much better..

I rented this movie because I just like watching horror movies and this looked like it could be fun. I was expecting the usual spook tale, you know the kind that keeps you entertained while you're watching but you forget about before you've even returned it. This definitely exceeded my expectations. With the opening credits, I knew it was an artistically done film which is always appeals to me but sometimes, are so so out there, that they're just too bizarre to have fun with. This wasn't one of those. If you're paying attention, which you have to do, this film will be very enjoyable. For being a horror film, it actually had relatively little gore. The worse scene is the bathroom which had me squirming for more reasons than the blood. The filmography was interesting though at times, a bit distracting from the actual film. The storyline wasn't what I expected either, I figured it was the spirit of a ghoulish man who was knocking off one character after another in creative fashions. But it's not that, it's so much more. The writing was well done, you believe the characters and what they say, they grow on you and when they meet their demise you feel bad for most of them. The only one that didn't grow on me was the main character but I usually have very little sympathy for the people that start all the havoc so it was nothing against her acting or character. This is a story filled with possession, deadly curiosity, time manipulation, betrayal, creepy bird costumes, and an ending that is far from predictable. Be sure to pay attention to the little details in this movie and don't take anything for granted. Thoroughly enjoyed this film and was very surprised at how different this was from what I expected.

We hear about it far too much in the horror genre: a poorly made film with an interesting premise.Had this shied away from the punk-teen angle (like that of Bava's 'Demons') and headed for straight horror (maybe on the level of 'El Orfanato'), it could've had the chance to be a rather good film. Instead, poor writing, bad direction, seemingly bored actors, and silly camera tricks in exchange for real scares, we're left with yet another forgettable haunted-house picture.I'd say pass it up and wait for 'The Orphanage' on DVD. Or, if you can't wait, check out 'The Devil's Backbone.' -AP3-