Joshua: The Long Road to Classic Horror

In the first 30 minutes of Joshua, I had the weird feeling that I loved the movie, despite the fact I was probably going to give it a negative review. The opening was all to familiar and taken from movies I could have gotten for $7.99 at Walmart, including the remake of The Omen. However, the movie more than compensated in the later half and now falls in my personal favorites, even if it doesn't live up to it at the box office.

Joshua follows the downfall of a Cairn family during the four months after the birth of their second child. The Departed's Vera Farmiga plays Abby Cairn, the mother kept up from the newborn Lily's consistant crying. Sam Rockwell plays Brad Cairn, the father trying to provide attention to wife, son, newborn, and mother while trouble develops at work. And Jacob Kogan plays the nine-year-old watching from the distance. He plays Joshua, the brother that looks like he belongs with him prep-schoolmates more than his parents are comfortable with. He plays the piano, has weird coincidences occur, and acts strange enough to make you yell "can't you see what the kid is doing? Get him counselling!" First-time behind a narrative film, George Ratliff fills Joshua with Beethoven's ominous piano music and powerful supporting characters, such as the controling, evanglist Grandmother (Celia Weston) and the eccentric, musical uncle (Dallas Roberts).

The turns and my approval begin when we start to see how much Abby's lack of sleep takes her in post-partum depression and Brad can only be in so many places at once. Joshua, with a nack for appearing suddenly more effectively than Damien in The Omen (2006), appears cliche until he stops appearing as our attention turns to afraid of him to afraid for Abby in her mental state. The Grandmother helps and hurts the situation, making you laugh and fear for the tense family horror. Moments taking our attention away from Joshua are the stronger points halfway through, until we begin to see exactly what it was Joshua was thinking in the background. (Hint: It wasn't thinking about action figures.)

To begin, the first half hour is lacking. It plays like the remake of The Omen in all the ways that didn't help that movie, only without the supernatural, there's alittle more room to think the parents are just paranoid. This time is used to set up to pay off later (like after the movie), but only to those that look carefully and think about the movie more than the average horror-fan's attention span will notice. Aside from that, the cheap jumps don't provide more chills than the first 15 seconds of the trailer (a great 15 seconds).

The turning point is what gets your attention, only it comes alittle late and afterwards the movie goes all too fast when it should have kept us in suspense later on, not earlier. Twists and red herrings are worth their set-up, but the set-up threw off the pacing, demanding the audience set patiently for the movie to become the edge-of-your-seat thriller it ends as.

The camera work is effective and Ratliff should keep his editor (Jacob Craycroft) for the cuts that do hold your suspense when the suspense finally comes around. The sound gets annoying. Piano music is the only noticable background music, and at times it gets in the way. I found myself wondering as the piano music builds, did the kid stop crying, or can I just not hear it over the banging of keys? Cutting the kid's crying for the sake of an overused sound effect doesn't help.

Entertaining? For the slow start, the movie appears predictable and simple. Dry humor and chills get mixed, creating a lost feeling. Those that liked Rosemary's Baby and The Omen (remake) will love this and will stay attentive, but others will grow bored and miss the extra layers.

Marketable? The limited release says something in itself. 2006's Omen was ill-recieved by most, getting a "rotten" 26% on the tomatometer (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/omen/), and the trailers remind us too much of the mistake we made on June 6th, 2006 (6-6-06, the release date of The Omen). Theaters decided instead to give us sequels and rip-offs this summer in the form of Hostel 2 and Captivity. When a movie relies on word-of-mouth, it's never likely to come up too often in conversation.

Memorable? I truly believe this is one that horror fans and those that love character depth and honestly surprising plot twists will love. There is no twists for the sake of a twist, only good surprises to keep you thinking. The Hollywood Reporter is accurate to say it has "Hitchcockian flare," only it could have benefited from it more had a more seasoned hand in screenwriting helped them out with the pacing so it gets to its stronger points faster.

Overall? I approve. The great ending is worth the extra effort to stay awake, but it's still hard to find someone that's willing to forget Omen and go see it. It's a hit-or-miss that's going to be talked about more from its hits than its misses.

Thanks,
-Jack.