Walled In

Astonishingly dull and pervasively unwatchable, Walled In follows structural engineer Samantha Walczak (Mischa Barton) as she arrives at an isolated, sinister residential building to determine its weaknesses prior to its demolition – with problems ensuing as Samantha is increasingly drawn into the mystery surrounding the building’s sordid past. It’s worth noting that Walled In admittedly does get off to a fairly promising start, as filmmaker Gilles Paquet-Brenner opens the proceedings with a striking sequence involving the murder of a young girl. From there, however, Walled In morphs into a progressively tedious thriller that boasts more than a few similarities to the J-horror ripoffs of the mid 2000s – with the ongoing emphasis on Samantha’s investigation into the building’s history, as well as the creeping inclusion of dishearteningly surreal elements, confirming the movie’s place as a hopelessly derivative waste of time. The film’s atmosphere of utter tedium is perpetuated by the presence of unreasonably quirky supporting characters, and it’s also worth noting that the movie suffers from the issues of logic that one might’ve expected (ie why does Samantha stay as long as she does?) The worthlessness of Walled In‘s first half is nothing compared to the atrocious and completely interminable final half hour, which is sure to drive away even the most patient of viewers and effectively cements the movie’s place as an uncommonly incompetent and aggressively boring contemporary thriller.

no stars out of ****