Things Heard And Seen premiered on 29th April 2021 on Netflix. Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, the film is based on the novel All Things Cease to Appear by Elizabeth Brundage. The movie stars Amanda Seyfried and James Norton alongside other cast members.
Where Is The Horror?
Things Heard And Seen is a 120-minutes long film with zero to no scary moments. The film opens with a bunch of paintings being flashed in an empty room via a projector and soon enough one of the painting turns into real-life scenery. Needless to say that the movie transitions into mundane factors real quick. As the movie progresses we see Catherine and George moving in on the countryside (named Chosen!), along with their young daughter Fanny, from Connecticut.
Soon after, Catherine starts experiencing things in the house to which George pays no heed. George works as a temporary professor in the town university and is well regarded among his students and faculty but there is something absolutely fishy about him, the film takes almost the entire duration to build on George’s truth and behaviour. George is a sceptic and Cath is a believer which plays a very dominant role in their relationship. He comes from a family of wealthy, homophobic asshats and Catherine is a thoughtful and sensitive person struggling with an eating disorder for which she is often taunted and blamed.
Along with George and Catherine, there are various other characters that play a considerable part in the plot like Eddy and Cole, teenagers who help Catherine take care of the house & Fanny; Floyd, George’s department head and a believer; Justine, neighbour and colleague; and Willis, a stable girl who George has an illegitimate sexual relationship with.
With the basic premise of the story laid out, we then see the ghosts acting up but not in a way that’ll scare you, but in ways that might rarely induce laughter. Irrespective of the deeper purpose attached to each character’s personality, their intentions and implications are revealed well ahead of time, destroying any attempt at creating mystery.
Additionally, Catherine’s inquiry into her home’s gruesome history does nothing more than blocking up the works and pushing the running time of Things Heard And Seen past the two-hour mark as the investigation doesn’t lead anywhere. All the likely cursed rings and dreams of early twentieth-century family strife hang like ill-fitting clothing on the central couple’s resentment, which should be an enigmatic presence made to mimic the usual resident evil.
Things Heard And Seen has a lot of plot holes too. Various components and factors are left hanging but the only good thing here is that the ghosts do not befriend Franny and neither does Catherine walk extremely slow with the ghost following her literally everywhere. The film fails to dive beneath the surface and that pulls it away from not only being a good horror movie but also from delivering its message.
Stream It or Skip It
SKIP IT! Things Heard And Seen is all talks with no action. The film is more about toxic relationships and chauvinistic men that often leads to destruction and death rather than ghosts and scares.
Things Heard And Seen is streaming now on Netflix.
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