I was quite intrigued by this movie…until the ending.

Things Heard and Seen follows a small family who move into a new home thanks to the husband getting a new job, however once in this home the family start to experience ghostly happenings and the wife, Catherine, soon realises that her house has a dark secret and her husband may also be harbouring dark secrets too.

This movie was really interesting but I think the most interesting part of it was that I didn’t find it scary. There were moments of jump scares and moments of horror and slight of hand but actually watching it I rarely jumped or got scared. It was weird because I was so ingrained into the storyline, I was really intrigued by this family and what they were going through, and yet any time the movie tried to scare me it didn’t. I think what did scare me more were the underlying tones that the film was portraying with the family dynamic and what had happened in this house previously.

I will mention now the actress that they got to play the original owner of the house, who was one of the ghosts, was absolutely terrifying. There was something about her look that really sent shivers down my spine and if you watch this movie I hope she gives you the same sort of feeling too because it is indescribable.

There are a lot of religious undertones to this movie as well, with the idea of ghosts and spirits there’s going to be, and there was a painting that consistently came up throughout the film and this painting’s storyline came to an end at the end of the film where it was mimicked in what we were seeing on screen. Now this is great symbolism, great foreshadowing, great use of art, but for me personally this storyline didn’t make much sense. The husband had finally gone off the rails but to have it end like this was very much like ‘ok…what are you trying to tell me here?’

Up until the point of the ending the story was pretty standard. It remind me of the Haunting in Connecticut and other paranormal films like that where a family moved into a new house and the house has ghosts and slowly things unravel between the family and the ghosts. A bit like the Amityville Horror, history seems to repeat itself, that I got and really enjoyed…and then I was intrigued that the movie continued past the point that I expected it to end. But the parts beyond the actual main happening of the house just got a bit too artistic and I don’t really know what it was trying to tell me.

That doesn’t make this film bad in any way. I did really enjoy it up until the ending, the story that I had up until that point was really fascinating as things got revealed more and more and you started putting pieces together more it became so much more interesting and definitely a horror that I could see myself enjoying again, it’s just a shame that the ending ruins the rest of the film for me.

I would recommend this film as it is quite interesting. I do wonder if other people find it scarier than I did and I would love to know your opinion on the ending as well because, to me, it just felt a bit inconsequential and I was expecting more. If I’m being completely honest I wanted a more tangible reality sort of ending and the ending we got was much more art style and metaphoric. But let me know what you think of Things Heard and Seen.

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding