{"id":377,"date":"2013-05-07T03:17:08","date_gmt":"2013-05-07T09:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/?p=377"},"modified":"2013-09-28T02:55:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-28T08:55:34","slug":"the-last-will-and-testament-of-rosalind-leigh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/?p=377","title":{"rendered":"The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I need to preface this review by mentioning that the circumstances under which I watched this film were not optimal. \u00a0It is a very thoughtful film, almost entirely comprised of mood and atmosphere, and I saw it in a screening room with a very large man in front of me where I had to lean to the side during the entire running time, and his ear still covered the left side of the screen. \u00a0It was a bit distracting, and I think it caused me to miss some things that you need to notice to fully comprehend the film. \u00a0This is a film that can only be enhanced by repeat viewings (which are probably necessary to get it all anyway), so I’ll probably watch it again when it comes out on dvd.<\/p>\n

The film, as I said, is full of mood and atmosphere, and is about loneliness, regret, and death. \u00a0It doesn’t hand feed or spell anything out to the audience, and lets you draw your own conclusions. \u00a0Those who don’t appreciate thoughtful, slow moving mood pieces will definitely not like this very much.<\/p>\n

It’s about an antiques dealer who’s estranged mother has passed away and left her estate to him. \u00a0He comes to stay the night in the house, and discovers that her level of religious fervor (which had contributed to his estrangement and caused some anxiety issues in his life) had reached fever pitch, and she had fallen in with a cultish group. \u00a0Most of the movie is him exploring the house and discovering things related to this group and his mother’s obsession with them, as well as her insistance on him accepting salvation. \u00a0Vanessa Redgrave voices his mother (in voiceover- she’s never really shown), and is the main voice we hear throughout the film.
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As the night goes on, strange things begin happening- he starts seeing things, having bad dreams, and feels a presence. \u00a0He’s not sure of it’s in his head, or real. \u00a0He finds a secret room and angel statues everywhere. \u00a0He begins to think his mother might be reaching out to him from beyond the grave, trying to tell him something. \u00a0A neighbor stops by to warn him that there is ‘an animal’ that has started coming out of the woods at night that is hurt, and may be dangerous. \u00a0His anxiety attacks start getting worse, and he begins to feel paranoid and stalked by the creature the neighbor warned him about.<\/p>\n

The film is beautifully shot, and evokes strong feelings of loneliness as well as creepiness. \u00a0Not a lot happens throughout most of it (with the exception of a stretch in the middle with the above mentioned ‘animal’), and no answers are definitively provided. \u00a0I’m not totally sure how much I liked it, and will need to watch it again. \u00a0It made me think of two other movies to some extent- the Woman In Black<\/em> (2012), which I liked a lot, and Antichrist<\/em> (2009), which I did not like much at all. \u00a0At any rate, the skill in the direction (by RUE MORGUE magazine founder\u00a0Rodrigo Gudi\u00f1o), acting, and cinematography cannot be denied, and the haunting atmosphere and sorrowful mood it evokes is very well done. \u00a0It’s not like most other horror movies (and is not for everyone) but if you’re into filmmakers like Brad Anderson (Session 9<\/em>, The Machinist<\/em>) you’ll probably eat this up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  I need to preface this review by mentioning that the circumstances under which I watched this film were not optimal. \u00a0It is a very thoughtful film, almost entirely comprised of mood and atmosphere, and I saw it in a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-the-last-will-and-testament-of-rosalind-leigh-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.postmoderntrashaeology.thezombified.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}