[Rik]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

We Are Still Here (2015)



A couple, grieving the loss of their teenage son move to a new home in rural New England in an attempt to start a fresh. However the house is notorious in the area for being haunted and is seen by the towns folk as being a house that demands sacrifices every 30 years.



We Are Still Here is a slow burn horror film. The first half mainly consists of atmosphere and background building whilst being impeccably acted by Barbara Crampton and Andrew Sensenig as the new arrivals and Larry Fessenden and Lisa Marie as their spiritual friends who they hope can contact whatever spirits reside in or indeed beneath the house. In some respects this first half is actually quite dull (in comparison with what is to come) if occasionally eerie but succeeds in building a believable back story and characters in order for the second half to come to fruition as a worthy pay off.



If the first half burns slowly then the second half is ablaze. The mystery and truth is uncovered and a gory almost Fulci-esq bloodbath kicks into gear.



If anything We Are Still Here could have been an early 70's Italian horror production. It's set in the late 70's and has references throughout to Italian genre cinema especially Lucio Fulci's The House by The Cemetery (The lead spirit is named Lassander Dagmar after that films actress Dagmar Lassander and the electrician that discovers something is wrong is called Joe as he is in House among others) we've also got the bouncing ball on the stairs from Bava's Kill Baby Kill (1966) and not The Changeling as some ill educated oaf suggests on IMDB as it's reference point (Do these people not know we use the first used example and not one that borrowed it later on) The film has a high Lovecraftian atmosphere and utilizes it's ideas far better than the many crash, bang, wallop jump scare horrors doing the multiplex rounds.



Recommended.

We watched this last night and apart from the obvious nods to other films like House By the Cemetery, I didn't think much of it tbh, I was pretty bored towards the end and found myself checking to see how long was left before I could go for a cig