User reviews

Walled In is the kind of horror film that sets itself up in a bizarre location and then explains all kinds of bizarre rules to make the scariness work. The movie opens with a series of headlines that explain the terrible discovery of 16 bodies cemented into the walls of a building, including that of the architect who designed it. We learn that the person who walled them in, Joseph Malestrazza, was never caught, and then we cut to 15 years later, when the building is planned to be demolished.

Mischa Barton stars as Samantha, a young member of the demolition company family, perfectly named the Walczak's (the 'c' is silent). She recently graduated from engineering school and it becomes her first lone assignment to visit the building and supervise its demolition. It's a perfect set-up for a horror movie, I suppose, although as soon as we get to the building, the one where the 16 bodies were discovered, you remember, and learn that the wife and son of the murdered architect are still living there, the movie takes a pretty serious turn for the worse. I would think that if a man suffered the terrible fate of being murdered and cemented into the walls of a building, his wife would take it upon herself not to raise their son for his entire life in that building. But that's me.

Upon her arrival we meet the woman living there and her creepy son, who explains things to Samantha that the lights go off every six minutes to conserve energy, she shouldn't go to the 8th floor (that's Malestrazza's quarters, you see, and it's never cleaned), and whatever you do don't go on the roof! I would think that someone planning the demolition of a building would explain the logical deficiency of avoiding certain parts of it, but we understand that this is a horror movie and these goofy rules he's explaining are a set-up for freaky sequences that are to follow. There's also the issue of a few remaining people who lived in the building and who are not likely to appreciate Sam arriving to destroy it. The young boy also worries that Malestrazza will be offended by her plans.

I was reminded of the brilliant novel House of Leaves in a lot of things about the movie. Sam discovers enormous discrepancies between the blueprints and the actual measurements of the house, which in that book led to a fascinating and frightening series of events, but in the movie leads to the cheap and utterly witless third act. There is also a lot of throwbacks to Psycho in the relationship between the young boy and his mother in an isolated location. Sam even describes the building as being "like the Bates Motel, only bigger," and at one point the mother forbids her son to go near Sam, telling him that Sa could never take care of him the way she does. Creepy.

Ultimately we learn about an "ancient architectural belief" that provides the reason that Malestrazza killed people and walled them into his buildings (and also the reason why not one of the 27 buildings that Malestrazza built have ever been torn down). It gives the movie the feel of something with more thought in it that it actually has. I felt a little flicker of interest when this was revealed, but in retrospect it strikes me as little more than a screenwriters brainstorm.

I understand that Walled In is based on a novel, and I hope the novel is better than the movie. Books, especially horror books, are always better than the movie, ad if someone read the book and thought it was good enough to make into a film, it must have been better than this movie, because it has all the sign-posts of a weak horror film. It's full to the brim with cheap scares (notice the Screeching Cat Scare, which at least was made a little bit different but essentially is the same old thing, and my favorite, a scary rose scare. You have to see that one to believe it) and blatantly rips off a whole series of other horror movies. I'm curious what the movie would have looked like had director Gilles Paquet-Brenner never seen Psycho, Texas Chainsaw, and the Nightmare on Elm Street films. He even uses that "One, Two, Freddy's Coming For You" song several times. Real creative there, buddy.

I won't go into the details of the end of the film partly because I don't want to ruin it for you but mostly because it's so dumb that I don't want to bother spending my time explaining it. I will tell you one thing though. There's a particularly amusing scene where the boy accuses Samantha of thinking that he's nothing but a "crazy little boy." You gotta see this scene, man, it's hilarious. At the time that he says that to her, I won't tell you what he happens to be doing, but when you make a statement like that, it's generally not a good time to be acting like a crazy little boy.

What follows that scene is a third act that is not entirely without effect, but definitely one of the dumbest situations that I've seen in a horror movie in some years. It is so bizarre and makes so little sense that the movie almost becomes a mystery. Another mystery is why the thing got made in the first place, but sadly, after seeing the movie, I don't think I'm every going to be able to bring myself to read the book

This movie had its promise, really interesting building and background legend. Unfortunately the authors forgot that the beauty is in the simplicity. The first two thirds do have some promise, but after that the movie slips into really over-combined mess.

Too much characters are packed in very small place and strange and totally illogical things do happen without any logical reason. This mess actually only confuses the viewer, it does not add drama nor thrill.

I seriously do like movies about strange buildings like "The Toolbox Murders" but the beauty of it is in clarity and simplicity. You simply do not want to see story in which the catharsis is mess of various scenes without any logic or reason. You basically know how the movie ends but you have no idea why it ended this particular way.

This movie would need serious clean up and simplification of the last third part to be actually good. It is just incomprehensible and the characters introduced in the first two thirds are mostly wasted. What a disappointment!

I rented this movie yesterday and really didn't expect much to be honest. Many current horror titles are very uninspired and frankly rely too much on gore and not enough on story or atmosphere. I was surprised though, it was an engaging story, taking inspiration for Poe perhaps, Agento and others which isn't a bad thing, and actually keeping a sense of its own identity and style. I love horror movies, especially ones that rely more on imagination and atmosphere, this one does to an extent but then focuses on the human element and becomes more of a thriller, in this I felt a little cheated.

The building which is the object of the movie is simply a nice piece of Gothic, deco art. Sinister and yet elegant in its simplicity, huge and monstrous in its presence. The premise works in the beginning and the actors do not disappoint. It is suggestion that works here as well as a psychological drama that is as twisted as an abnormal Mother and son relationship and dark secrets of the past mingled with arcane knowledge of the architecture of forbidden temples. Sadly though, I wished for more emphasis on the later aspect, it held my interest and fascination, but it veered into a film about a demented teenage crush. If more time had been spent on the architect, his history and theories as well as the previous murders then the chill factor would have been amped up.

The building should have been the real star here and its creator and to a large extent it is, yet it slowly is pushed into the background and dwarfed by a teenager's obsession and some of the dwellings rather seemed to be almost inconsistent in their art direction. The inhabited dwellings almost seemed cheap, bland compared to the overall presence of the building. It caused a sense of confusion, perhaps intentional.

Enjoyable yet flawed and could have been developed into a much richer film. It is still a fun view. I hope the director continues with the genre, though this film has its flaws, the director has potential.

I had high hopes for this movie after seeing the trailer. This could have been a good movie, but... The production team seemed to have run out of money, and then had to wrap it up really fast half way through, causing a hasty and staggering series of quick shots with "one-take" scenes. This, obviously, made the actors look bad and that's a shame. They did a good job at the beginning of the film. The first 20-30 minutes of the movie is actually pretty good, but I'll save you the time by saying that it went downhill FAST. I'll give you perspective that the budget of a film means nothing to me. Sure, I love the special effects that make the big-budget films soar and help tell the story, but I like the low-budget, indie films just as well, provided it tells a good story. This film has neither. When they started to rush, they lost the viewer by getting off track, and seemingly changing the actual story line, making it confusing, wobbly-paced, and completely destroying the story. Not intense, not scary, not interesting. Save your time and enjoy a good indie thriller or a big-budget film that you've yet to see.

The talented and beautiful Mischa Barton is a good actress well above the usual CW standard. She deserves to make it big on the silver screen. However she seems to be doing a lot of bad b movies recently especially badly written horror movies. This movie was interminable, unpleasant, not very scary and overall a waste of time. Set in a gloomy building set for demolition, Mischa plays a demolition expert sent to assess the building and she encounters an even gloomier cast of characters there. The pace is glacial and the situations are just boring. Cameron Bright of the Twilight sequels isn't quite enough to carry the movie as supporting cast either.

Unfortunately even as a fan of Mischa, it was a struggle to finish this boring dud.

PA-THE-TIC If you find boredom scary then 'Walled In' is truly terrifying.

I'm not sure what the producers' plan was to take an incoherent story, really bad acting, really really bad production quality and mixing them together.

The plot: A small town's (the typical horror movie small where cell phones and the internet don't work per horror movie criteria) factory and only source of employment closes down and leaves a 10 story apartment building standing in the middle of nowhere. A serial killer begins picking off the residents and entombing them into the building.

15 or so years after the murders Sam Walczak (Get it!) your typical female, recent college grad, demolitions expert is sent to demolish the almost abandoned building.

"Almost" as there are still people living there. Sam even decides to stay in one of the apartments. Of course it is never explained why a 10 story rotting building with only a few squatters and set to be demolished still has working utilities.

So what scary things happen to Sam? Nothing! And no the squatters don't turn out to be the ghosts of the victims. It's just plain boring.

I cannot think of a single reason to see 'Walled In.'

I never saw the trailer, but I can guess that it gives off the wrong impression. "Walled In" is not a horror movie, at least not like "The Ring" or "Saw" or anything that features murderous ghosts, demented psychopaths and rivers of blood. So if that's what you're looking for, I hope I saved you 100 minutes of your life.

Instead, "Walled In" is basically a slow paced mystery. The story is about a young rookie demolition engineer named "Sam" (Mischa Barton) whose first job is to survey and plan the demolition of a very creepy and cool building where 15 years prior, a bunch of grizzly murders took place and the killer was never found. Although this premise may lead you to expect a Saw like serial killer game of cat-and-mouse, the story took a different approach. This is really about Sam slowly piecing together the puzzle of what happened and trying to solve this cold case.

Is it terrifying? No. It is creepy? Yes. Largely due to the formidable building (which supposedly doesn't exist in real life but had me fooled enough to spend an hour unsuccessfully googling where it was located), the dark, desolate vibe of this film is very powerful. The lighting is very dramatic with extreme dark and shadows, much like the Exorcist III insane asylum scenes, and the color palette is very rusty. I don't remember seeing any greens except in the very beginning. We are immersed in a visually surreal world that expresses decay.

But I stress again that this is not a gory slasher supernatural horror flick, even though the visual style looks that way. I would put it in the same genre as "Dream House" (2011), "Rosewood Lane" (2011) or maybe even "The Sixth Sense" (1999). Like all of these films, the mystery has its fair share of surprises, and I have to say I didn't see the twist coming, but after thinking about it for a while it made perfect sense, and all the characters' bizarre actions were explained. It should be noted that this is an adaptation of a best selling novel, so the book probably goes into more detail. But this still worked for me.

I thought Mischa Barton's acting was excellent, playing an inexperienced heroine without being an idiot. Almost all of the acting and casting seemed to fit perfectly. The only exception was, surprisingly, Cameron Bright, whom I loved in the similarly-vibed mystery romance "Birth". Here he reprises a similar characterization of an emotionless mystery kid, but in "Walled In" I felt like his role could have added more value if he were more explosive. But who knows, maybe the director was making the point that that growing up in a creepy, isolated concrete monolith all his life would lead to a severe lack emotional development.

"Walled In" definitely presents a lot of psychological food for thought, and I haven't even touched on the really cool artistic and historical themes of architecture that play heavily. Definitely not a gut-grabbing slasher flick, but if you've read this far, then I think you should give this flick a whirl. I really enjoyed this movie and wouldn't hesitate to see anything else the director does.

"Walled In" definitely looked like a horror movie with massive potential and several aspects about the synopsis immediately appealed to me, like the guaranteed horrific theme of claustrophobic death, isolated buildings with a macabre past, lunatic architects and a slowly unfolding serial killer plot. I became even more convinced of the potential after witnessing the terrifically uncanny opening sequence in which a small child is trapped between four walls and screaming her lungs out whilst cement slowly filling up the concrete grave. This is a harsh and nightmarish sequence that you don't expect to see in modern day horror movie, so I started to feel very confident this could become a gem of a film. Unfortunately I shouted victory way too early again, as the walls of the productions literally come crashing down promptly after the opening credits. The screenplay is adapted from a graphic novel written by Canadian writer Serge Brussolo, and I certainly don't doubt the idea makes an absorbing book, but the film version is unstructured, confusing, preposterous and utterly implausible. Furthermore, the film itself is extremely unpleasant to look at what with its grainy photography, grim ambiance and vile characterizations. "Walled In" is one of those movies that make you nervous and uncomfortable without actually scaring anyone, so I was really glad when it was over. Sam Walczak is a freshly graduated engineer and the heiress of her family's destruction company. Her father offers her the opportunity to be in charge of her very own project: organizing and supervising the demolition of a remote and sinister apartment building, originally designed by the notoriously eccentric architect Joseph Malestrazza. The building has a dark past, as reputedly over 15 previous tenants were entombed in the walls, and Sam quickly experiences there's truth in the rumors. Together with the slightly offbeat teenage son of the evicted caretaker, she develops a theory that the mysteriously vanished architect might still be entrenched in the building. Pretentious and lethargic, "Walled In" is basically a totally absurd movie with an overload of transparent red herring and atmosphere building elements that are boldly stolen from other (and much better) genre classics. The ending is downright pathetic and actually a direct insult on the viewer's intelligence. Don't expect any gore or bloodshed, neither, just a whole lot of wannabe shocking undertones leading absolutely nowhere. The performances are very much below par and the overall conclusion regarding the film is, simply put, embarrassing. If these walls could talk … they would advise us to throw all copies of this movie in a hole in the basement and subsequently blow up the building.

The O.C.'s Mischa Barton stars as Sam Walczak, a demolition engineer whom first job is to demolish a building located in the desolate swamps of Scotland. Upon arriving she finds that the building isn't as empty as she was led to believe (some tenants have inexplicably stayed), as well as the fact that the location may very well be haunted by the victims of the people that the architect of said building happened to entombed within it's walls.

What started off as a slightly intriguing original story soon and all too readily devolved into a badly acted, scare-free, soap opera-ish. Barton does absolutely nothing to entice the viewer's waning interest and her co-stars (some of whoms acting is laughably bad) are not any better. Just when you think it can't get any worse, one of the characters (who shall remain nameless as to avoid spoilers) falls down a hole and it does... Perhaps with better acting, a more cohesive story, some scares and better directing, this film might have worthwhile to watch, as it stands now, that's sadly quite simply not the case. (and don't even get me started on the ending)

My Grade: D

This movie really isn't terrible. It's a little weird, but it's well shot and the acting is decent. I'd watch if again if I were drunk or bored- or both.

Samantha Walczak (Mischa Barton) is the first Walczak to graduate college, and follows the family tradition of demolition, despite her love of architecture. She is sent on her first assignment to a building from an eccentric architect, Joseph Malestrazza, who cemented the bodies of people into his walls, including himself. This allegedly gives the building immortality, which is a bit of a problem when you're in charge of demolishing it. In the battle between demolition expert and spiritual architecture, who can win?

I watched this film, and found myself let down after the first ten minutes. I enjoyed the opening scene with a young girl becoming part of the building -- more scenes like this would have sold the film -- and the credits over newspaper articles detailing horrific murders tied to the building. But the remainder of the film just flopped and dragged like a captured fish out of water, and to say what I would say and say it better, I defer to the reviews of Michael DeZubiria and Horror.Com's Staci Layne Wilson. (I am reluctant to encourage readers to venture from Killer Reviews, but these are excellent writers.)

Wilson touches on all the right allusions, hinting that "Walled In" has aspects of Argento, Poe, Roeg, Polanski and Cocteau -- names you don't just throw around. DeZubiria compares the story in some respects to Mark Z. Danielewski's unique 2000 novel "House of Leaves". But Wilson is right when she says the directing "plays it safe" and falls short of all these looming figures, and the accompanying cinematography is "not very innovative", which is unfortunate for a film set in a building as interestingly bizarre as this one. DeZubiria flatly states that "Walled In" "blatantly rips off a whole series of other horror movies".

Wilson and DeZubiria both find the film discourages, rather than encourages, reading of the original book -- Serge Brussolo's novel "Les Emmeures". Wilson says "the movie quelled my curiosity" and DeZubiria bluntly says the book "must have been better than this movie" but "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to bring myself to read the book". As I found the plot to be largely a rehashing of "Thirteen Ghosts", and the storyline as given in the film to be boring, I have to concur -- the book is likely better than the film, but doesn't seem worth my time to seek out.

DeZubiria doesn't reveal the end, but says it's "so dumb that I don't want to bother spending my time explaining it", and that's a fair assessment. I seriously had a difficult time sitting through half the movie, it was a bit of cinematic torture to make it to the end. The "making of" featurette doesn't help or add any value to the DVD. Wilson rightly says it's nothing more than back-patting. If you want to see the cast and crew congratulate themselves on a boring movie, be my guest. But I think these two reviewers got it right -- there are many other authors and directors who deserve to have their films appreciated. Read and watch those novels and films, and leave this one to be quickly forgotten in your local video store's discount bin.

I used to be a very easy grader, till I've seen too many Horror films that simply didn't do the genre justice. So I've found myself rating many films 4 - 6, and too many times unimpressed. In this case, however, I must say I think this film is a little underrated...

The beginning and build up were absolutely fantastic in my book. It's become rare to find this kind of original screen writing, and being the Horror freak that I am I've seen many many horror films. The idea of a killer walling-in his victims? Simply awesome! As the film continued, however, I've found too many aspects resembling Toolbox Murders, although they all changed and became their own ideas towards the ending. Same goes for the twists - I always like playing the guessing game in these kinds of Horror-Thrillers, and I love it when all my guesses are wrong!

I've actually seen many complaints and critics talking about plot-holes and bad screen writing, and I must say I simply don't understand why... have I missed something? There are many aspects on which the film could have improved, but plot-holes? The acting and cinematography have also been just right if you ask me. As for the ending - a little anticlimactic, but that's the main problem in most Horror films of the pas decade or so. Also, the build up is better than the ongoing film, so the great potential could've been lived up to better. Also - the things that bothered me the most - the homage to the Freddie Kruger "One, two..." song. Out of context, out of its league, and simply wrong!

All in all - I liked this film a lot more than Toolbox Murders, and I think it's definitely worth watching. It might not be a masterpiece or one of the best ones, but very few are. In general - never trust the critics, or the reviewers. Always watch and judge for yourself!

Any film that begins with a small girl, trapped in a wall cavity, being smothered by cement, immediately gets my attention, but sadly nothing that follows is quite as arresting as this cool pre-credits sequence. Mischa Barton plays Samantha Walczak, a young structural engineer sent to evaluate an apartment building in the middle of nowhere that has been scheduled for demolition. The building, designed by eccentric architect Joseph Malestrazza, has a terrible history—15 years earlier, a serial killer buried people alive in the walls—and it soon becomes apparent that the horror isn't over.

With its creepy care-taker Mary (Deborah Kara Unger) and her strange son Jimmy (Cameron Bright), a couple of crazy tenants, a massive mausoleum-like entrance hall, lots of gloomy hallways, and a few hidden architectural features that hold long lost secrets, there is no shortage of atmosphere in the fortress-like Malestrazza building, but the film as a whole isn't as structurally sound as its chilling locale. It has several obvious weaknesses that threaten to bring the whole mess tumbling down without the need for explosives: there is lots of creepiness, but very little genuine horror, the performances are forgettable, the story takes an age to go nowhere, with a disappointing resolution, and the execution is tired and predictable (director Gilles Paquet-Brenner even chucks in a blatant variation on the Nightmare On Elm Street nursery rhyme, as if horror fans wouldn't notice).

Not since "The Shining" has a film in this genre captivated me unequivocally. What makes it so is simply the reverse of the former insofar as there was only one truly insane character. "Walled In" has only one sane character surrounded by a gaggle of obsessed, deranged, demented and wretched characters.

Sam is exposed to her deepest fears and her most convulsive nightmares as she attempts to make sense out of something that travels far beyond that which is sensible. Her engineering discipline is immediately compromised as she confronts the lunacy of the other characters and of the building she is hired to destroy.

The blueprints read a dubious meaning due to being incorrect by engineering standards and utterly preposterous in terms of what she discovers, either by accident or design. Her curiosity compels her to confront her fears as she leads and is led into secret passageways pointing to the reality of her terror.

The building itself emulates the ancient pyramids in reverse as evidenced by the form of the windows. What is consistent is the self tortured architect's believe that a building can have soul only if human beings are sacrificed within its walls, an irony not easily discounted.

The affects of all the various forms of torture, insanity and oppression are virtually unimaginable as Sam struggles to live within the depths of a nightmare. Deftly played by Ms. Barton and ably supported by a finely honed production staff and equally as adept actors, the film gave me some nightmares of my own.

On the day of her birthday, the young engineer Samantha "Sam" Walczak (Mischa Barton) is assigned by her father to conduct a structural analysis of an eight-floor building with one hundred and twenty units in the middle of nowhere to be imploded by their family demolition company. Sam finds four tenants that had received the eviction notice but are still living in the building: the caretaker Mary (Deborah Kara Unger) and her teenage son Jimmy (Cameron Bright); and the sick Burnett (Eugene Clark) and the weird old lady Denise (Jane Redlyon) that have no place to go. Mary lodges Sam in apartment 208 that is furnished since the former dwellers have never collected the furniture. Jimmy befriends Sam and advises certain "rules" to be respected to her. Sam is haunted during the nights by ghostly noises and discovers that the building has dreadful secrets and the blueprints are not as built and the place has secret chambers. She investigates further and finds that the successful architect Joseph Malestrazza (Pascal Greggory) built the building following the principles of the Egyptian pyramids and twelve years ago, one revengeful worker that has never been arrested walled dwellers in, including Mary's beloved husband, entombing the victims in cement. Along the days, weird things happen to Sam and she believes that Jimmy might be playing a prank on her until she finds the shocking secret of Malestrazza and his building.

"Walled In" is an underrated horror movie, with a good and original supernatural story of insanity. The cliché that the cellular does not work in the remote place is fruit of the present days (if this story took place in the 80's or 90's, this cliché would be not necessary). Further, the conclusion could be a little darker. But the story does not have "many flaws" as I glanced in reviews; indeed the smart plot that is quite complex and maybe the viewer has not understood the big picture and the characters' motives. The beautiful Mischa Barton and the strange Cameron Bright fit perfectly to their characters and Deborah Kara Unger is creepy in the role of Mary. I would never dare to say that "Walled In" is one of my favorite horror movies, but is not as bad as commented in some reviews. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Prisoner" ("The Prisoner")