Visions, 2016
Directed by Kevin Greutert.
Starring Isla Fisher, Anson Mount, Jim Parsons, Gillian Jacobs, Joanna Cassidy and Eva Longoria.
SYNOPSIS:
Everleigh Maddox survives a horrific car accident, and a year later, while pregnant, begins to suffer terrifying visions suggesting the event may still be haunting her…
You wouldn’t know that producer Jason Blum had been up for an Oscar last year by watching dross like Visions, the latest ‘chiller’ from his Blumhouse Productions stable, because this is a million miles from the style and verve of Whiplash. Isla Fisher–one of those actresses you cast when you can’t get half a dozen others–gainly attempts to craft some kind of character and arc out of Kevin Greutert’s enormously bland picture as (the weirdly named) Everleigh, a pregnant young woman who suffers a horrific car crash and a year later plans to open a vineyard in a super posh, almost idyllic looking part of California, full of the kind of boring people who think wine is fascinating. Then come the titular visions, the nightmares, the hallucinations, and the growing conviction something spooky may be haunting the home she shares with her husband David (Anson Mount), all of which begins to escalate into zzzzzzzzz. Oops, sorry, fell asleep for a moment there. What a coincidence, as the same thing happened watching Visions!
This has to be one of the dullest horror movies in recent years. Fisher immediately seems to struggle with an American accent and attempting to make Everleigh in any way interesting, while frankly Greutert seems a lot more interested in wine and other characters such as the mysterious Helena (played with histrionics by Joanna Cassidy) or vintner Victor (played by the delightful John de Lancie, the only one above this snooze fest). Greutert’s direction is beyond bland, giving Everleigh’s life a clean, HD pallor as he attempts to inject atmosphere into the visions, but the pacing is so slow and ponderous chances are by the time revelations begin to come about the house, and Everleigh, and some of the people in her life, you really won’t care all that much about any of it. People like Jim Parsons and Eva Longoria pop in for pointless roles you wonder were either favours to someone, or part of some unseen contract, before everything twists into a ridiculously overblown, melodramatic and frankly soap opera-style conclusion. Maybe it’ll do some good and wake you up from the sleep the movie will have put you in.
It almost makes you angry that rubbish like Visions can get money poured into it, when so much other good stuff by great writers & talent fails on the drawing board. Maybe it’s because boring, rote horror like this can be pumped out quickly and without much in the way of creativity, and while Visions is in no way objectively awful, there is almost literally nothing of interest to say about it because the film has absolutely nothing of interest to say. The direction is boring, the writing is bland, the performers don’t particularly care, the story is silly and everything about it just screams predictable.
Give me a terrible film any day over something as lifeless as this, you know, something that will actually keep me awake while I’m watching. Blumhouse as a production company can produce, and have produced much much better.
Visions is out on DVD and Digital HD on June 20th.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Tony Black is a freelance film/TV writer & podcaster & would love you to follow him on Twitter.
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Originally published June 20, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
