After moving to an old house with her family, Emma Callan (Elisabeth Moss) is agoraphobic and haunted by a doppelganger that lives in the attic. Emma stops going to college and has friction with her father Graham (John Savage). When Emma is attacked by the ghost in the attic, she is sent to therapy with Dr. Perry (Thomas Jay Ryan) by her mother Kim (Catherine Mary Stewart); only Detective John Trevor (Jason Lewis) believes on her statement and he helps Emma to investigate her doppelganger. When her slow brother Frankie Callan (Tom Malloy) is slashed on the throat, Trevor gives a gun to Emma for her self-protection.

"The Attic" from the cult-director Mary Lambert is that type of horror movie that has potential but unfortunately fails. The main reason is the terrible development of the characters, and the viewer sees the series of weird events without knowing Emma, Graham, Frankie or Kim or their relationship, disclosed only in the end. The acting of important characters is very weak and does not help to save or at least improve the story. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "O Sotão" ("The Attic")

Here is a horror movie that seems to take a little something from every scary movie that was a hit in the last ten years. The Ring, Skeleton Key, Sixth Sense, Hide and Seek--you could play spot the influence with pretty much every scene in this one. Realizing early on how derivative this one was going to be, I really didn't want to like it.

But by the end, I had to give this one some credit. It does a couple things different. I thought the way the story ended wasn't totally predictable (it ended up reminding me a little bit of an older movie called "Haunts"--that's a spoiler for any of you who know that one).

The story follows a young girl, Emma, who moves into an old house with her family and begins to see the ghost of the dead twin sister she didn't know she had. The ghost doesn't do much at first, watching from out in the yard, but the danger escalates until Emma is afraid to leave the house. And yet, she is not safe inside, either, because the movie is called "The Attic," so they had to put some stuff up there, too. Everyone around her thinks she is crazy, so be ready to put up with 90 minutes of paranoia. The only one who wants to help her is the young, handsome small-town cop with the nasally voice and poofy hair that our heroine will slowly develop feelings for.

I thought everyone in this movie was terribly miscast. I understand it was probably a small budget production, which usually means a lower caliber of acting, but these people were ugly, too. I'll give an example, with a very specific SPOILER included: at the end of the movie, when a new family moves into the house, we see another young girl for whom the cycle will surely begin anew. This girl was much more attractive than the slimy-looking lead--why didn't they cast the 2nd girl as the star? Maybe they cast the actress who did play Emma because she was so freaky-looking that they didn't need much makeup for the scenes in which she played the ghost-twin. She definitely belongs in a horror movie, but not as a sympathetic character--she naturally looks evil.

I can't really give a good reason why I didn't totally hate this movie--it's just one of those instances when you end up liking something even though it has ingredients that usually don't work. When I saw what happened to the family, I guess it felt like it was a slightly original way to bring a resolution, but it was still fairly silly overall. If you aren't totally sick of seeing pale girl ghosts with stringy hair who move around like they're in a Nine Inch Nails stop-motion animated video, than you may be into this one. If you don't usually like cheap, amateur, b-movie trash, don't bother.

The only nail biting you will be doing in this movie will be if you get hungry and there's nothing to eat in the fridge. The acting is very weak and the story line is paper thin. There is very little suspense or thrills, and certainly nothing to make your heart race - or even go "bump" a little bit which makes for a very un-worthwhile film for anyone buying/hiring the video expecting those things. The wicca allusion was totally superfluous and the film's only "high" note for me was the appearance of Detective John Trevor (Jason Lewis)- but only because of his good looks. Overall, I was very disappointed with this movie and I wouldn't recommend it to other fans of the horror/thriller/supernatural genre.