7 Days To Live

I have seen several suspense films recently and most of them seem to have failed miserably. Films with low budgets don’t bother me as long as they tell a good story. After watching 7Days to Live I feel like maybe there is still hope for the horror/suspense genre. Every movie can’t be The Sixth Sense or any other Shamalayan film. However, 7 Days to Live is an excellent story that managed to hold my attention and deliver a decent amount of suspense. It was formulaic in some aspects and maybe a tad bit predictable, but well done. The budget seems to have been a bit better than some of the other drivel I have subjected myself to recently.



The plot of this film surrounds an old abandoned house that has memories. Amityville Horror might be the first film that comes to mind…but there have been a host of others. What you do with those memories is another thing entirely. 7 Days to Live is not in the same ballpark with Amityville Horror, but in my opinion exceeds some of the other haunted house films (with large budgets) I have seen. Following the death of their son, a couple relocates to the country to recover. The father is a writer who has a best seller…the change of locale may be the inspiration he needs to get over the hump and write his next book. They purchase a house which has been vacant for twenty-three years…it was the site of a murder in 1976, but nobody bothers to tell them this fact. Small personality changes start appearing in both characters leading you to wonder what the source of their shifting moods might be. It requires a steadfast commitment to ignore the illusion they are witnessing to save themselves from the spirits of the house.



The plot is interesting even if it has been done different ways in the past. The story evolves slowly, even thought we experience a “countdown” from very early in the film. The countdown and mood changes add to the suspense factor. The suspense of this movie is created by the writing more so than the visual effects. The dialogue is interesting, especially because this is a British film. The dialogue inserts language I am unfamiliar with at times, which adds to my own curiosity regarding this movie. The exchanges between the characters are mostly believable, although there were a couple of conversations that I thought were a bit forced. The characters are well developed and provided enough dimension to connect with the audience. I actually cared about the characters and the outcome of this movie, which is a crap shoot for me when it comes to this genre. Some of these films kill the characters off before you ever get a chance to know them. This film does an excellent job of introducing the characters and developing them along the plot line.



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