Review by Quin
I always find it interesting how two people can watch the same movie, and one can be totally unfazed by what they see while the other is completely freaked out. I read a review of The Quiet Ones where the critic said that he watched it with his hands near his eyes while his body was positioned way down in his seat. When I watched it, I didn’t feel a single ounce of fear or dread or even the heebie-jeebies. Now, I’m not trying to say that I’m some tough guy or whatever. I will be the first to admit that the silliest things have given me nightmares over the years. The Quiet Ones just isn’t scary. The good news is that I’m not completely convinced that it’s trying to be. It is well-made, well-acted, and has a great retro look that is successful in a realistic and non-costume-y way. But if you are looking for a good scare from a ghost story, you may want to pass on this one. This movie is all about the story and the relationship between its characters.
The Quiet Ones begins with the now cliched proclamation that it is inspired by actual events. This has become about as boring and predictable as the old guy at the gas station who tells the kids not to go into the woods. But after a bit of research, I found out that the true story that this movie is inspired by is just a tiny piece of what we see on screen with much of the details completely changed. So, kudos to the writer for showing some creativity. And as I said before, the story is pretty good. The name The Quiet Ones refers to a group of college students who are working with an abnormal psychology professor on an experiment that may be more paranormal than psychological. With the leadership of Professor Coupland, Krissi, Harry and AV guy Brian attempt to help figure out if a young girl named Jane is suffering from mental illness or if she is possibly possessed by an evil spirit. This is all done by locking the girl up in a room, depriving her of sleep and then performing seances and hypnosis in the evenings.
The group promptly loses funding from the University of Oxford and is then forced to conduct their experiments in a creepy old house. As you might guess, the experiments escalate into violence and terror for the group, and this all happens in said creepy old house. Things stay pretty dark except for the light given off by the equipment that is used for hypnosis. Gadgets spin, and wires connected to boxes with dials go buzz. The same critic whom I mentioned was scared during this film mentioned that he has a fetish for such old-timey medical gadgetry, so if you are into that sort of thing, you are definitely going to love the look of the experiments. Great care and time is taken with many of these scenes, so they never feel rushed. But for me, these scenes just weren’t scary enough. They were missing something that I just can’t put my finger on. Perhaps it would have helped if I had seen it on a big screen in a crowded theatre. I think watching a horror movie on an iPad or computer can suck all the scary out of a horror film – much the same way that I believe HD and digital video undoes the cinematography of older movies shot on film.
If you don’t mind that The Quiet Ones might not be very scary and want to see an interesting story with good characters then you may be pleasantly surprised by this. The plot is simple, but there is enough drama and love triangles between the characters to keep most people entertained. The acting is also very much worth noting. Particularly, the part of Coupland is played by Jared Harris. He’s an actor who has been around a long time and most recently found enormous success on the television show Mad Men. He’s off that show now, so perhaps we’ll see him do some more movies. In the Quiet Ones, Harris plays Coupland with an underlying anger that feels pretty sinister at times, but there is also a sadness as well as a mad scientist vibe. He is a lot of fun to watch. The other standout performance is from Olivia Cooke as Jane Harper, the girl who is the center of the experiments. She is one of my favorite actresses right now. Like Harris, she is another English thespian known for American television – she plays Emma on the A&E show Bates Motel which is a prequel to the Hitchcock film Psycho. She plays a friend of Norman Bates and is an all around sweet girl, but she is emotionally wounded and sick with Cystic Fibrosis. A very different character than what we see her play in The Quiet Ones. I predict she is going to do great things in her career and I’m sure she’ll be around a long time.
The director of The Quiet Ones is John Pogue. It’s his second directorial effort after Quarantine 2 (which I actually enjoyed), but he’s written the scripts for such films as Ghost Ship and The Skulls, not some of the best movies I’ve seen (and that’s being nice). However, he’s gotten some help with the writing this time from Oren Moverman, who wrote the script for I’m Not There, and wrote and directed Rampart (a great Woody Harrelson corrupt L.A. cop movie) and The Messenger (another Woody Harrelson movie, not the Joan of Arc movie). So much of Moverman’s work is excellent. Together, Pogue and Moverman do pretty well.
I would be remiss without mentioning the fact that this is a British-made film from Hammer Film Productions – obviously a film studio that has such a rich history with horror going back to 1934. After more than 25 years of laying dormant, the studio was re-awakened in 2010 like Dracula from his ancient slumber. The Quiet Ones is Hammer’s fifth release since the revival, and most of what they’ve released so far this century is outstanding. The Quiet Ones is a fine addition to the Hammer canon. And if you’re interested in reading about the real story behind The Quiet Ones, there is a plethora of resources online that tell you all about it – just look up The Philip Experiment. There are even some videos of the seances that took place. But I am a jaded skeptic and I think I have to call bullshit. Without the drama and characters of The Quiet Ones, this would mostly just be people playing with a ouija board in the dark while listening to Slade and T-Rex.
The Quiet Ones is available on Region 1 and 2 DVD from Lionsgate. It is also available for digital download from iTunes and Amazon.