Grade (F)
Another been-there-done-that trip down the below average road of the suspense-thriller with an added high amount of predictability.
Synopsis
After a horrific car accident a couple moves to a vineyard in hopes for a fresh start as their first child is on their way and soon the wife begins to experience terrifying visions that make her question her sanity.
My Thoughts
October isn’t just fit for horror films – often a good suspense-thriller can also fit the bill for a night with some edge-of-your-seat entertainment. This film boasted a smaller cast of some familiar names, far from A-lister’s but still highly capable. The premise sounded interesting but it wasn’t more than 15-minutes into this one that I could see where this film was going. The inevitable plot twist was not so visible from the jump, but the course this script would take was as clear as newly cleaned glass.
I am a fan of Jim Parsons and love his work on “The Big Bang Theory” and I was interested to see what his role in this film would be, but much to my disappointment it was nothing more than a glorified cameo appearance much like the role played by Eva Longoria. Both of their characters were worthless in this story-line that was completely Isla Fisher centric, and while her performance was far from horrible, she was only able to pull off a solid performance through a highly generic role.
The set-ups for suspense are so easy to see that they fail to deliver any such tension. The character played by Fisher routinely is found alone, to hear or see something, and her husband who is conveniently never around at the right time, will refuse to believe her. Also I cannot speak for women, sure friendships can spark quickly and two people can form a bond in a short amount of time, but nothing seemingly as fast as the friendship built in this script between the characters of Eveleigh and Sadie. The convenient building of the friendship felt way too neat, and it easily showed signs of being a plot-device for the upcoming twist.
Like the title of this film, the viewer also begins to quickly get visions of their own about the path this script will take and how the inevitable plot-twist will work itself out. As this third-act gets going it is not ESP that gives the viewer the ability to predict the future, but the weak structure and complete lack of ambition in the writing. There was never a scary moment or really even any frightening scenes during the entire film. The majority (if not all) of the attempted jump scares are false, usually ending with a jolting noise from a broken window, or phone, or shutting door, virtually anything other than something that would actually frame any true suspense.
In the end “Visions” is all kinds of forgettable and really brings nothing more than an average story, with average performances, and cheap suspense attempts that fail to deliver and drop the quality level of the film to below average. The entire project felt like bits and pieces of others that were much better and even the plot twist felt borrowed. Isla Fisher was decent in the lead role but the material she had to work with did not give her any chances to create something memorable, and overall this movie is not worth the time.
– Starring –
Isla Fisher, Anson Mount, Gillian Jacobs, Eva Longoria, Jim Parsons, Bryce Johnson, Joanna Cassidy
– Directed By –
Kevin Greutert
Time: 102 min
MPAA Rating: R (For violence and some bloody images)