Something unspeakable is happening to Jane Harper.
Directed by John Pogue.
Written by Craig Rosenberg, Oren Moverman, John Pogue and Tom de Ville.
AKA
Le origini del male (The origins of evil)
Les âmes silencieuses (Silent Souls)
Az elnémultak (the silent)
El mensajero del diablo (The messenger of the devil)
#hammer film loosely based on the Philip experiment, a parapsychology experiment that took place in 1972 in Toronto. The experiment attempted to prove a theory that the human mind can create ghosts. The experimenters invented a fictional character named Philip who later on in the experiment actually made contact. Fascinating stuff.
Being Hammer I had to buy this on Blu-ray.
It stars Jared Harris as Professor Joseph Coupland who wants to prove that the supernatural is a manifestation of what already exists in the mind and cure what he calls a disease. He invites one of his students, Brian McNeil (Sam Claflin), to film and chronicle the experiment. Coupland also has two assistants, Krissi Dalton (Erin Richards) and Harry Abrams (Rory Fleck-Byrne), and the subject of the experiment is a girl called Jane Harper (Olivia Cooke).
Jane is at the centre of supernatural phenomena and spends her time in a locked room, kept awake by the playing of loud rock music. She sees an entity called Evey, a doll or a child (?), which the experimenters believe she is creating mentally.
When they lose their funding the experimenters relocate to a large house in the country to continue their work.
Partially seen through the character Brian’s old-fashioned camera and partially a normal film The Quiet Ones looks great. It also has a fantastic cast and quality acting. It’s an interesting story and something different and it’ll probably make you jump quite a bit, it did me anyway.
Brian and Jane become closer amidst the phenomena that takes place. Brian isn’t happy with the ethics of the experiment and even thinks the whole thing may be being faked by Coupland. He confronts Krissi and Harry about this. But despite ethical issues Coupland seems to want to help Jane; the surmounting evidence is quite remarkable.
Cracks begin to form in the team and a division of opinion as to what is actually happening comes about with Coupland, on one side, convinced Jane is causing the phenomena from within herself and Brian, Krissi and Harry, on the other, coming to think a demonic force is involved.
I feel I must defend The Quiet Ones from negative reviews calling it boring and messy. This isn’t your traditional tale about a haunting or demonic possession tale and that’s going to attract some unwarranted criticism; I know when I first heard of it I imagined something like The Woman in Black (2012), the Hammer film before this, which is a very traditional ghost story so I was initially a bit surprised by it. I watched it a second time and liked it a lot more.
The soundtrack is pretty good and includes the songs Cum On Feel The Noize by Slade, Telegram Sam by T. Rex and Silver Machine by Hawkwind.
Also stars Aldo Maland as David Q (child), Max Pirkis as David Q (adult) and Tracy Ray as David Q’s Mother.
Other recent Hammer films I can recommend:
Let Me In (2010)
Wake Wood (2010)
The Resident (2011)
The Woman in Black (2012)
