Inner Ghosts

As a director, Alves is most effective in creating spooky and portentous atmospherics for Inner Ghosts, in which the sparse tuning piano score courtesy of Miguel Cordeiro helps tremendously. In fact, I would contend that Alves maintains the moody quietude of the piece to such an extent that, come the midway point, his movie begins to feel slow. The languorous pace, while arguably appropriate to the eerie material, ultimately proves difficult to sustain feature-length engagingly. This is particularly evident during the many (and I mean many) discussions surrounding brain function and electromagnetism, not the sexiest of subjects…especially in a horror movie! 

“…most effective in creating spooky and portentous atmospherics…”

Alves rebounds spectacularly, however, and pulls off a final bravura act that almost makes up for the listless previous hour and ten minutes. This heart-stopping final sequence is reminiscent in its style of moments from Adrian Lyne’s hallucinogenic Jacob’s Ladder as well as in its sensory impact of Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs. Alves creates a brilliant unity of sound, image, tone, and craftsmanship (from the director as well as his ace cast) and brings the story to a startling and enormously satisfying finish. Furthermore, the finale satisfactorily wraps up the salient themes of motherhood and sisterhood that Alves and screenwriter Paulo Leite (the film is based on Leite’s novella “Counting from One Hundred in Sevens”) have been exploring throughout the course of the film. 

A truly international production (according to the film’s closing credits, producers originate from such varied places as Taiwan, Portugal, Canada, Brazil, and the USA), Inner Ghosts has a lot working in its favor. If it were possible to review a movie based solely on its final ten minutes, Inner Ghosts would garner a perfect 10. Yet, even with that stupendous finale, impressive performances from a talented cast, and an effectively minimalist score, Inner Ghosts cannot overcome a sluggish pace that haunts the majority of its running time.