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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Believe (1999)

   Benjamin Stiles (Ricky Mabe), after being kicked out of several boarding schools, is sent to live with his strict grandfather where he and his new friend Katherine try to solve the mystery of what happened to a ghost that keeps appearing to them.LAME!!!I have absolutely no idea how this movie ended up in the horror category on Netflix.It started out somewhat intriguing and I hung in there because I thought something really interesting might develop, but near the end of the movie I began to realize that Believe was more of an after-school special than a legitimate horror movie.
   Benjamin's grandfather, Jason Stiles (Jan Rubes), doesn't believe the stories of everyone around him that claim to have seen the ghost of a woman around his mansion and forbids anyone to talk about it.Benjamin becomes friends with local girl Katherine Winslowe (Elisha Cuthbert) and they decide to help the ghost they have been seeing find peace and later discover that the ghost is the deceased sister of Benjamin's grandfather.Benjamin and Katherine are prohibited from seeing each other when Jason Stiles and Katherine's great uncle, Ellicott Winslowe (Ben Gazzara), find out that they are friends.That being said...it turns out Ellicott and Jason's sister were in a relationship when she died and the two men had been blaming each other for years for her accidental death though neither of them were anywhere in the vicinity when it happened.
   Okay, so there went my hopes that something sinister happened to Jason's sister.I can't believe I sat through Believe to find out that the ghost everyone had been seeing just wanted her brother and her lover to stop hating each other and blaming each other for her death.Really?This was considered a horror movie?Okay,so in hindsight I realized maybe I should have checked the rating on this movie...I later noticed after watching it that it is rated PG-13...definitely a red flag for me.I wouldn't have wasted my time if I had noticed beforehand.As far as family movies go,I guess it was an alright movie, but I went into it expecting horror so I'm a little perturbed.I wasn't anticipating a sappy life lesson for sure, at the very least I expected the ghost to have been the product of murder or suicide and be hellbent on getting revenge or something.I had all of these scenarios running through my head of what might have happened to Jason's sister..like her brother murdered her because he was in love with her and couldn't have her or something sick and disturbing like that (What?You people already know I'm a sicko! I watch a minimum of five horror movies a week...enough said.)
   I'll be checking the ratings on movies from now on for sure.It was never an issue until now because I guess I just assumed that all horror movies are rated R...wait, what am I saying? REAL horror movies ARE rated R and Believe was not a horror movie just because Netflix seems to think so.I won't be fooled again!!So Netflix gave Believe 3 out of 5 stars which is accurate if you're watching and expecting it to be a family movie, but as far as it's horror movie rating goes it's half a star even though I guess that's unfair because it just ISN'T a horror movie!!Oh well...
   WOW!!!!I just checked out trailer for Believe and it has the nerve to say it's as haunting as The Sixth Sense...I almost fell out of my chair laughing...Can you say delusional?

2 comments:

  1. When i watched it it was pretty good and one of my favs

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  2. I looked up this film because my brother was making a feature film a few years ago and was thinking of casting Ricky Mabe, and wanted some info on his earlier work. I agree -- the trailer and for sure the cover art on the DVD were pretty misleading! Most of the story isn't about the supernatural stuff at all, but focuses on the two kids becoming friends (the girl is traumatized by having lost her parents, and the boy tries to get her to enjoy life again by involving her in his geeky pranks). The background is kind of Gothic, but that's pretty much it -- otherwise it's a tween romance. The director did "Frankenstein and Me" earlier, which also isn't a real horror movie but more of a homage to B-movies in popular culture.
    I'm guessing that Ricky did learn a lot from being one of the leads ... he did a pretty good job in my brother's indie film (http://www.dirtybeautifulmovie.com) . As he got older he's doing more writing and directing -- which is ironic since in "Believe" that's what his character seems to be heading towards. There are lots of stories about child actors who have a pretty bad time of it after their fame ends, but Ricky seems like he's doing okay. My brother says he's fun to work with. I think he's done one actual horror film ("Trailer Park of Terror"), and I heard that he's got a role in that new "Preacher" adaptation. But he's more inclined to the Judd Apatow type of comedies, based on what he's been doing since "Believe".

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