Hannah House (2002) User Reviews

Moonless Prarie Nights

[jfgibson73 · 5/10 · 20 March 2010]

Reading through the comments left by other IMDb users (currently only two), I was glad to see someone else mentioned that this movie reminds them of the cursed video from "The Ring." I think that might be the best comparison to give someone an idea what to expect.

Hannah House is a mostly silent film, set in the early 1900s prarie. The action mostly takes place in and around a small cabin inhabited by a young couple, Anna and Jobe. It is basically a haunted house movie, as strange things begin to happen after they move in. They begin to see images of dead people, such as the woman who hung herself in the same cabin. There are lots of images of snakes crawling around in and under the cabin. From what I can tell, both Jobe and Anna go crazy and die by the end.

Technically, the movie tries to reproduce the look of some of the earliest silent films. It has a sepia tint much of the time, and the music is a weird blend of mountain-folk and goth-like components. The story seems to follow a linear progression much of the time, as we see the couple move in, interact with another local couple, and give birth to a child. However, as it goes on, it gets more and more symbolic and experimental. The emphasis is on the imagery and the effects. Some images, such as a women looking into the camera with wide eyes or a group of men crawling towards the viewer would not be as creepy in a movie with a more traditional look. Like the haunted video in The Ring, you feel like your are watching something secret.

The ending is a flurry of images that I can't really put into words, but as I said, it looks like everyone dies. I got the feeling that this movie was more about practicing some technical exercises than telling a story. I like the idea of a movie that tries to create the look and feel of another time, but I would like it more if it had a compelling story to tell also.

Interesting and well worth a viewing.......

[pob75 · 7/10 · 14 September 2013]

A strange, almost silent, sepia toned black & white film complete with intertitles. There are a few brief sentences of dialogue (which seem incongruous) and some voice snippets in the soundtrack. It is difficult to describe and to me sometimes has an almost Eraserhead feel mixed with the early surrealist films of the 20s and 30s. If you had to place it in a genre it would be a horror film – an experimental, unusual supernatural horror – but that does not really describe it well. Visually striking, original and often very effective but the relatively clunky effects and low production values tempered my enjoyment at a few points.

A basic plot, slow paced early on becomes a much more frantic succession of images which are quite effective and disquieting later in the film.

It seems caught halfway between trying to look deliberately unreal/dream-like and looking like an authentic silent film from the 1910s or 1920s. I can't make my mind up whether they intentionally gave it a less than authentic look with some slightly jarring, out of place effects to increase the surreal, dream-like feel or whether some of the visual effects were just clunky. It's possible that some of my issues with this film are things that the filmmakers were deliberately putting in. On balance it felt to me like they were mainly aiming to achieve an authentic 1910s/1920s silent film look. As far as overall tone and feel this was quite successful, probably impressively so on their budget.

***If you haven't yet watched the film I would suggest that you stop reading here – there are no plot spoilers but my comments following this are perhaps hyper-critical and I wouldn't want to draw your attention to things that might dilute your enjoyment of the film***

I feel bad criticising this film too much. They have achieved an original, interesting and different film with some decent ideas and disconcerting images............... .......but........... ........I couldn't help my attention being drawn to aspects that jolted me out of feeling that I could be watching an old film. Much of the (intentional) low resolution and the CGI ageing effects (darkened screen edges, sepia tones, varying contrasts and flickering brightness, vertical thread-like faults etc etc) worked quite well. Other aspects didn't. The often overly pixelated quality of the image rather than the less squared-off, grainy, low contrast, out of focus fuzziness you get with proper old celluloid images was, at times, intrusive for me. This sometimes made me feel I was watching a poor quality streaming video on the internet that would have looked OK as a smaller image but had been expanded to full screen giving it that Lego-like, blocky, large pixel look. Some of the CGI overlays felt very poor and gave the impression of unrelated images floating over the top of a background they had no connection with – this even happened when they were characters that were clearly meant to be interacting with other parts of the scene.

As someone who has watched many early 20th century films I couldn't help noticing the camera movements and angles. I felt that the camera moved too much rather than the often static camera of the early films that shot scenes as if they were stage plays filmed with a fixed camera. There were a lot of zoom shots and some point-of-view and tracking shots that felt out of place.

The soundtrack was variable but often worked very well. The weirder organ and string based soundtrack in the latter half is much more effective, disconcerting and atmospheric than the earlier acoustic guitar music which did not do anything for me.

Not what I expected - but so what - this film was great

[johnnydeville · 8/10 · 2 November 2005]

I actually got this movie on holiday in Russia. Lets just say this film wasn't what I expected - firstly it's in Black and White - secondly it's a silent movie. Fortunately the copy I picked up had the text in English as well so that was a definite bonus! Don't know if the film will be released here - it should be - this could easily get a Donnie Darko like following, it really is that weird. There are lots of digital effects and the picture jumps around all over the place, if the film makers were going for a 1920's feel they have succeeded. If I had to describe this film quickly to someone I would say it was complex, visually stunning, and purposely unique. If you are ever on holiday in Russia then I suggest picking this film up, you won't regret it.