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Unseen, The

4/10

Stars: Jasmine Hyde, Richard Flood, Simon Cotton

Director: Gary Sinyor

What starts out as a study in loss and grief gradually develops, almost inevitably, into a psychological chiller. But it takes a long time for the thriller elements to crystallise into something that might glue us to the screen.

Wealthy couple Gemma (Hyde) and Will (Flood) lose their only child when he drowns in the indoor pool at their home. Unguarded pool and young boy at night could, you might think, constitute an accident just waiting to happen, but no matter: Gemma and Will are desolate, as you would be.

Then Will swears he keeps hearing their son's voice in the boy's bedroom, while Gemma suffers bouts of blurred vision and panic attacks. She's rescued from one of these by Paul (Cotton), who offers the couple his 'spare' home in the Lake District if they need somewhere to get away.

Now Paul is obviously not to be trusted, or frankly we wouldn't have a film, but it takes an unconscionable long time before the plot condescends to give us an idea of what's going on.

Writer-producer-director Sinyor aims for the spooky but misses: some of his camera angles here aren't nearly tight enough, and there's too much lightness and brightness. Performances are certainly professional, but, like the movie, nothing really special.

David Quinlan

UK 2017. UK Distributor: Miracle Communications. Colour (unspecified).
108 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 08 Dec 2017