I love this movie so much

Great Film overall

The acting in this movie is really good.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Troubled young Christy (a fine and appealing performance by Nora Zehetner) returns to her home town after her sister Vanessa (a haunting portrayal by Carly Pope) dies after suffering serious burn injuries in an automobile accident. However, Christy continues to be tormented by disturbing visions of murder and violence, so she decides to find out more about the circumstances pertaining to her sister's untimely death. Director Dagen Merrill, who also co-wrote the compact and compelling script with Kevin Burke, relates the absorbing story at a steady pace, does an ace job of crafting a quietly spooky atmosphere, grounds the premise in a plausible everyday reality, stages the harrowing climax with skill and assurance, and, best of all, places a welcome and refreshing emphasis on a delicately unsettling mood of unease and mystery over the standard crude assortment of cheap scares and graphic gore. Moreover, the grotesque make-up f/x for the hideously disfigured Vanessa are top-notch and there's even a touching element of genuine pathos and regret. The bang-up acting by the excellent cast further keeps the movie on track, with especially commendable contributions from Matthew Settle as the secretive John, Jessica Amlee as precocious little girl Amy, and Gabrielle Rose as the flinty Mrs. Locke. Mike Southern's crisp cinematography provides a handsome bright look. The eerie and elegant score by John Frizzell and Frederick Wiedmann hits the spine-chilling spot. Worthwhile fright fare.

As a teenager Christy Wescot and her sister Vanessa are in a car accident. Vanessa becomes horribly burned before she eventually dies. Christy has a mental breakdown and leaves town. Six years later she returns when their old caretaker passes away. Memories and visions haunt her. Could Vanessa be trying to say something from beyond the grave? We've seen the story before. A person who has suffered some childhood trauma returns home only to be confronted with demons past. Beneath never manages to do something new and creative with this concept, but in its unoriginality it still remains pretty watchable. One of the reasons for this is the mercifully short running time and general pace. There isn't anything excessive in the movie. We are told what's necessary and little else. Some movies need time to unfold, while others like Beneath, benefit on being concise and to the point. None of the actors really make a mark, but Nora Zehetner as Christy is likable enough. It was a pleasant surprise to see Don S. Davis (Twin Peaks, Stargate SG-1) in a minor role as the caretaker Joseph too. The technical aspects of the movie are generally decent, with a couple of great shots, like the tracking shot as Christy first comes home. There was one musical cue that was supposed to scare, but instead came off as forced ruining an otherwise decent scene. Speaking of scares there is very little suspense in the movie. The returning visions may yank those dosing on the couch back to reality, however it soon becomes tiresome. Only towards the end does Beneath manage to create some tension, but it's too little too late. The ending was an interesting mess making me wonder if they were unsure how to round it all off.Ultimately Beneath isn't likely to scare horror fans, though a younger crowd may find it satisfying. The film is well made for being a straight-to-DVD release and everyone involved seem to have contributed the best they could. It looks alright and it kept my attention throughout. I only wish they had made a stronger effort in writing the script.

Christy watches as her sister is badly burned in a car explosion due to a crash with which she was driving. Told that she was dead, Christy believed that she was still alive. Sent away to a mental hospital, Christy is said to have a Borderline Personality Disorder, and this affects her job later as a 20 year old intern(Nora Zehetner). Finding out that an old friend passed away, Christy returns and decides to pursue whether or not her sister Vanessa(Carly Pope)died from heart failure due to trauma, or by malicious intent. Her sister's husband John(Matthew Settle)wishes her to leave as soon as possible and his daughter Amy(Jessica Amlee)speaks of a thing which comes from the closet to haunt her at night, hoping to catch it on her digital camera. When those close to Vanessa either wind up dead(..like John's mother, portrayed by Gabrielle Rose)or harmed(Amy and John), Christy, against the advice of those around her who resist her notions of a sister who was buried alive, will hopefully shed some light on obvious secrets which have remained hidden just like a crawlspace in the Locke house leading to several areas. An important sub-plot is Christy's uncanny ability to see people's faces and certain acts from the past and future for which she artistically renders to paper. Also important is the location of a mysterious medical assistant to John, Claire(Eliza Norbury)who was with him when Vanessa supposedly died.More or less a mystery with pretty, cat-eyed Zehetner, quite subtle and never really over-dramatic despite the struggles and hurdles she contacts during her search for the truth. If some character, particularly John, is rather aggressive and angry towards her wishing for her to leave, Christy(..through Zehetner) doesn't overreact or throw tantrums about being mistreated. A constant feeling of others wishing for her to just leave the town is ever-present and when she questions anything about Vanessa's death, barriers are thrown up. But, you just know that Christy will forge ahead despite signs of danger, and find the truth. While it's easy to see who the culprit might be regarding the mystery's answer, I found a critical twist regarding Vanessa's true fate rather hard to swallow. The film contains a house with a crawlspace that is very important as a travel source for both escape and directly leading to rooms..it's a plot device used well. You often see Christy attending funerals, too. The twist might work for some..who the monster is that is supposedly terrorizing Amy and behind the attack of John, but I found it a bit hard to take. Beautiful location work, attractive production values, and rather decent acting, but the overall film never really gripped me. And, that ending(..what happens when Christy discovers the real truth about Vanessa)left me cold and indifferent.

***WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ***"An honest life ends in a peaceful death" —Proverb."Beneath" is a horror flick released straight to video and marks the directorial debut of Dagen Merrill, co-written with Kevin Burke (who also wrote 2003's "Tahiti", an indie drama that earned some critical praise).Christy Wescot (Nora Zehetner, "Brick") is a 20-year-old pre-med student who cannot fully live her own life since her older sister Vanessa (Carly Pope, "Sandra Goes to Whistler") was killed in a car accident six years earlier, in which Christy was driving. "Give me the wheel! Christy!" could have been the last words she remembers from her sister, who was also a young mother and the wife of John Locke (Matthew Settle), a local doctor in the town of Edgemont.The sudden death of family caretaker Joseph (Don S. Davis) prompts a phone call from John to Christy informing her that the funeral services will be held next Saturday. This phone call releases the latent anxiety Christy has been suppressing for the past six years. So when Christy jumps aboard a bus, she's already been fired from her job and is in need of antidepressants for a diagnosed borderline personality disorder spurred by her guilt over her sister's injuries. "Why did you go away?" her niece Amy (Jessica Amlee) asks her. Christy sardonically replies, "I went to prep school" (University of South California). Now Christy's niece lives in the Locke family home with dad and her grandma, the ominous Mrs. Locke (Gabrielle Rose), whom her cute red-haired granddaughter calls a "weirdo", and she is indeed, since she disappears from the dinner table and prefers to eat alone in her place. Amy is convinced a dark, mysterious thing killed good ol' Joseph and that Grandma is mean and secretive. Nora Zehetner maintains a mesmerizing tension from the very beginning. When she contemplates her arrival home to the small town from which she's been disconnected for a long time but has never severed her ties to, she does an awe-inspiring job of conveying Christy's conflicting emotions. And this is one of the main reasons the film succeeds, because its plot devices rely basically on our empathy for the lead character. There are moments that as a viewer we can notice the story would dry up if Christy couldn't find a new clue, a new clear thought, an accusatory gaze from some of the townspeople who have become strangers to her. She finds it difficult to reconnect with a junior high school friend, Debbie Houston (Nicola Anderson) and the townsfolk try to make her move on. Christy must not only hide the pain of her lonely existence and the hallucinations that plague her, she also has to face the humiliation of condescending treatment from the neighbours, nurses, and cops around her; though one of them, Jeff Burdan (Warren Christie), is pretty kind to her, his cop pal Randy (Patrick Gilmore) makes a cruel remark before being introduced to Christy.Christy investigates some circumstances that occurred during the six months of rehabilitation that Vanessa received in Locke's home immediately after the accident, a losing battle against a certain death. Christy finds out this rehabilitation took place in a room beneath Locke's house where Vanessa was attended by a nurse named Claire Wells (Eliza Norbury) whom supposedly left town and moved to Portland, Maine. Christy also investigates the details about Vanessa's burial, as well as her medical files (which are now in private access for John Locke), all the while succumbing to near psychotic states when she suffers random seizures that lead her to draw darkly artistic portraits of people and threatening symbols. The laid-back manner of the townspeople grate on Christy's nerves as they stubbornly deny her suspicions regarding her sister's death. Christy is constantly perceived as an unstable, meddling girl, which fits these simple-minded locals struggling in a post-mining economy ruled by Locke's dynasty.But as another character says to Christy at the beginning of the story, "Death is always hardest on the living." And this obsession with her sister's death makes the heroine's lunatic mind spin frantically like a profaned coffin. "It lives in my walls. I hear it crying". "I take pictures 'cause I can't draw", Amy says.Passageways designed for escaping the mines, locked entrances, insects-plagued basements will confuse us as much as they confuse Christy in her confused mental state; the film is soaked with the romantic, timeless beauty of Nora Zehetner, whose performance as an isolated young woman with a precipitous imagination elicits our innate sympathy and conquers our hearts in the end. Zehetner's Poe-like heroine maybe is a paraphrenic without love life but she's the last voice standing against the apathy and lack of conscience that the town represents. Christy awakens our sedated morals, defending her right to unmask her tortured soul, a beautiful, vulnerable but never weak, Miss Lonely in the land of guilt". http://jake-weird.blogspot.com/2007/08/beneath.html