Estranged (2015) Reviews

• Spellbinding,dark and family secrets galore....

  wildsparrow162016-02-16

  I only started to watch this for Amy Manson (Being Human),and was not expecting much. This is a cerebral thriller, although some scenes were too sadistic for my taste. The characters are well cast and take "dysfunctional family" to a whole new level. I found it a bit confusing once secrets were revealed and may watch it again (granted, I was tired). This is worth your time- don't watch if depressed- it is very dark. Manson exhibits incredible on-screen,smoldering intensity which makes her characters strong and intense. This one is not exception. I love movies with dark secrets and strong female protagonists (despite all she endures, her strength comes through).

• Much Darker Than Expected

  jamieg-381962016-02-22

  The premise of this sounded very interesting and I watched it back to back with Sand Castles which has a similar premise - and this one falls short of the other in my opinion. It was surprisingly darker than anticipated and went in a direction I did not expect. Definitely not for the faint hearted, I feel as if it missed a trick by sacrificing on dramatic realism in exchange for shock factor, and the result is you feel very uneasy watching it rather than suspenseful of the unknown. It's visually interesting, with great set design that immediately makes you feel uneasy. It is further enriched with excellent performances from its cast, most notably Amy Mason in the lead, who is sublime. Definitely worth watching, it portrays a very dark, suspenseful tale, even if it does feel very disjointed and forced in places. Not the film I expected, which left me more deflated than surprised come the end. Can't help but feel they missed a trick, creating a psychological horror rather than a thriller.

• A taught, well acted chiller that deserves to be more widely seen.

  mrjaded2016-04-12

  This movie brings to mind the hey day of early seventies low budget British shockers from the likes of Amicus, Tigon, and Hammer. The days when all you needed to make a film was a spirited cast, a largely unknown bolstered by a single "name" performer recognisable to Americans (in this instance James Cosmo), and free access to a down at heel stately home. It's hard to classify this movie in terms of genre, neither truly a thriller nor a horror. – it's more of a "creeper" than anything else. The sense of unease is ramped up throughout the convoluted twists and turns of the plot before plunging into true horror in the final third. I think this has presented a problem for the marketing department and I feel that they may be making a mistake in the way that they are presenting it. Many people will feel mislead and disappointed that this isn't the horror movie that the posters suggest, which is a shame since it's more than that, it's a taught, well acted chiller that deserves to be more widely seen.

• Cheap and unsatisfying

  Leofwine_draca2016-08-30

  ESTRANGED is a low budget British horror film that screams derivative at every step. The film's protagonist is a young woman named January who is crippled in an accident abroad, an accident which leaves her wheelchair bound and without a memory. She returns to her ancestral home in the UK, but soon becomes convinced that her family members are out to get her. Is she going mad, or is there really a sinister plot at work? It's not hard to guess the outcome of this film because the same subject matter has been done to death elsewhere. Although the plot is slightly different, ESTRANGED seems to me to be a huge copy of the excellent French thriller FRONTIERS, especially in the format, the climax, the look and actions of the main girl, etc. Except where FRONTIERS excelled, ESTRANGED simply bores. It's one of those films that's saddled with a dullish protagonist who you don't even like, let alone care about. Actress Amy Manson can do nothing for her character. The rest of the cast don't get much of a look in, particularly poor James Cosmo, who is such a fine, gruff actor but who is sorely wasted here. I did like Craig Conway, cast against type as the butler, as he's always good fun. Sure, there are a few strong and/or edgy moments contained in this, but the whole greyed-out look makes it a depressing watch and CGI gore effects are always a disappointment for me too unless they're done very realistically, which they aren't here.

• The Ending is the best part.

  albereinstein2016-02-22

  If art imitates life, then there are some really sick people in the world. This film was about a young woman who suffers a accident, winds up back at her childhood home where some real dark colorful characters pretending to be her family all reside. Although the story unravels from inside the home, at no time did I feel like you needed more locations to make the story work. In fact, the happenings unfolding to this young woman couldn't happen anywhere else, because of the graphic nature in which things are done to her. Overall, I've seen this story before in other films that deal with family issues. I think on a whole, all families have dark secrets And if ever found out, lives would be completely destroyed, and the jails would full of family members. A lot this film was cliché and predictable. I endured it to the end, and for me, the ending was the best part. It just took a little to long to get to it.