LAVENDER (2017) (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

[Philip De Parto]

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from:

THE MT VOID
Mt. Holz Science Fiction Society
02/24/17 -- Vol. 35, No. 35, Whole Number 1951

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LAVENDER (2017) (film review by Mark R. Leeper)

Warning: Spoiler at the end of this review

CAPSULE: An amnesiac has a spectacular car accident that shakes 
loose some hidden memories of her younger self. Obsessively trying 
to piece together her past, she goes to live at the farmhouse of 
her youth. Canadian director Ed Gass-Donnelly co-writes and 
directs this mysterious melodrama involving a woman passing into a 
strange world of repressed memories and perhaps the supernatural. 
LAVENDER would have made a good 1970s TV-movie or a just-okay 
current theatrical film. This is more an exercise in suspense than 
one of logic. And it satisfies neither suspense nor logic. Horror 
film fans who do not suffer from amnesia will have seen much of the 
film's content before. Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10

Abbie Cornish plays Jane, a woman who remembers only parts of her 
youth, and who is fixated on the past. She likes to take pictures 
of old abandoned farmhouses to try to recreate a feel for earlier 
days. But when she is almost killed in a car crash she starts 
seeing visions of her own forgotten past--images she might have 
preferred to forget. She discovers her parents and sister were 
murdered in a massacre reminiscent of IN COLD BLOOD. And now Jane 
is starting to remember her nightmarish history. She discovers 
that a farmhouse she photographed and which had fascinated her had 
been her original home.

There are indeed creepy things going on in the old house. And 
someone is leaving her small wrapped gifts that are artifacts of 
her past. Ed Gass-Donnelly, who co-authored the script and 
directed, has tried to foster suspense by having Jane have slow 
explorations of the house, never finding a lot important. That is 
one problem for the viewer. He is put through a lot of suspenseful 
scenes but makes little progress toward solving the central riddle. 
And the riddle is never completely solved. What is solved is only 
what is suspected anyway.

There is cinematic homage to THE SHINING. Jane's daughter Alice 
seems to have an invisible imaginary friend who talks to her about 
her mother, much as Tony talked to Danny in the Kubrick film. Also 
while THE SHINING had its topiary maze, LAVENDER has the main 
character hysterical in maze built of bales of straw. (Don't 
people in horror films know there are simple strategies like the 
right-handed rule to avoid getting lost in a maze?)

The farmhouse was subtle. It does not scream "haunted!" the way 
Eel Marsh House did in THE WOMAN IN BLACK. The film manages a 
little bit of atmosphere, but the story is too predictable and not 
enough original. I would rate LAVENDER a low +1 on the -4 to +4 
scale or 5/10. LAVENDER will be released to theaters, VOD and 
digital HD on March 3. 2016

Film Credits:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4680980/combined>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lavender>

SPOILER AHEAD: If you want to know how things are going to turn out 
in the plot, notice the film stars Abbie Cornish, Dermot Mulroney, 
and some lesser-known actors.

[-mrl]