Behind the Wall (2008)

2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Seeing the Lighthouse

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Behind the Wall is a very deliberately old-fashioned horror film with low gore and some very nice, fluid, floating camerawork. Unfortunately, it never really goes anywhere new, and while the performances are admirable, the characters never seem to have been fully fleshed out. It begins as a bunch of developers prepare to re-open an old, abandoned lighthouse in an effort to drum up some business for their small town. Pretty redhead Katelyn (Lindy Booth) arrives back in town, twenty years after a horrible event, during which her mother died and after which her father was convicted of murder. A priest (Lawrence Dane) tries to convince people not to go into the lighthouse, and especially the basement, but only Katelyn believes him, even though people start dying and disappearing one by one. Drew (James Thomas) is the good-hearted, sensitive developer who takes a liking to Katelyn, and Monica (Suzie Pollard) is a slutty, hot blonde who goes poking around in the wrong places. It's advertised as "from the writer of Poltergeist," and that would be Michael Grais, but on this he's only a producer. Likewise, director Paul Schneider is not the same Paul Schneider who appears as an actor in films like The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Bright Star. The DVD from Monarch has no extras; my copy had some annoying white blips at the top of the frame, though I can't be sure that's a standard problem.