User Reviews

I was pleasantly surprised at the overall quality of this indie effort. From the opening scene the tension in the father/son relationship is palpable and they maintain the intensity w/o too much dialog to rely on. Kudos to both actors for very strong performances. The look and feel of this movie are spot on and the score is also an asset. The editing was a bit choppy and the film did seem to drag a little but there were no scenes that felt like they should have been left on the cutting room floor. I was confused at times and that added to the feeling that I just wanted them to get on with it, so to speak. Where the effort falls short is in the ending. It does build to a point and then the writing fails the actors. The last 20 minutes are cliché ridden and lack any originality. Come on, the pedophile who isn't who he says he is and oh yeah, by the way, he also happens to wear his collar backwards? The communications with dead people cross a line that Sixth Sense never did. We watch as the murderer has his head bashed in (4 violent blows) with a rather large stone and he disappears before the police arrive. It feels like they tried to address all the misdirections and somehow made things more confusing. I must say that the ending left a very bad taste in my mouth. This is sad mostly because of the very solid effort that preceded it. The writers and production staff deserve high marks for making a film that came so very close to being something special but in the end(literally) fell short. One final comment about the cast. What made this movie good were the performances from top to bottom. They all deserve praise and applause fr their efforts.

The Disappeared is set in a rundown working class region of England & starts as teenager Matthew Ryan (Harry Treadaway) is released from hospital, going home with his father Jake (Greg Wise) there is an undeniable tension between the two over the disappearance of Matthew's younger brother Tom. One blames the other although it was Matthew's responsibility to look after Tom when he disappeared, Matthew was at a party & let Tom wander outside at night on his own from which point he hasn't been seen again. Matthew starts to hears Tom's voice, Matthew thinks he sees quick flashes of Tom & becomes convinced that his missing brother is trying to tell him something. His father thinks Matthew is crazy but after following the clues & messages Matthew thinks he has discovered what happened to Tom...

This British production was co-written, co-produced & directed by Johnny Kevorkian & like so many low budget wannabe classic films that do the rounds at festivals & get great write-ups I simply cannot see what the fuss is about, I found The Disappeared a dreary thriller with slight supernatural overtones that in the end felt to me like a much more grim take on The Sixth Sense (1999) with the main twist at the end. Seriously, The Disappeared is basically a depressing take on The Sixth Sense & I stand by the fact I think the ending of the two films are very similar. I am not quite sure what the makers of The Disappeared were aiming for or who they thought their audience would be, the majority of The Disappeared feels like a gritty British drama set on a scummy rundown council estate (don't knock them, people have to live in these places) where nothing good ever happens as it's always grey, depressing & full of yobs, the unemployed & abused children. The Disappeared certainly tries to show the uglier side of Britain & what the working class way of life. The first thirty odd minutes is decent enough drama I suppose but then the supernatural aspect is gradually introduced, first it's just voices but soon develops into visiting ghost's & seeing strange religious symbols. I wasn't keen on the ending either, the paedophile priest is something that we have all become aware of because of the media here in the UK so again the makers take delight in showing the seedier & nastier side of British life to no great effect. The twist reveal at the end doesn't even make that much sense, while Matthew supposedly killed the villain it's also said later the body was never found so what gives? At an hour & a half it drags a little in places & I can't say I was enthralled although it does have it's moments & can be quite powerful at times.

Although almost certainly deliberate The Disappeared has a really grey, dreary & dull look about it with no bright colours evident at all. The real life scummy council estate location looks suitably rank & I can confirm there are places that ratty here in the UK. There is definitely an atmosphere here, not a scary one but a depressing downbeat one that makes The Disappeared a little soul destroying to watch at times. The script takes itself very seriously & there's no comic relief or throwaway humour here at all. Violence & gore is minimal, in fact I can't remember any gore at all but that's clearly not what The Disappeared is about. It's about grief, it's about relationships, it's about an atmosphere of hopelessness & it's about the supernatural.

Filmed on location here in the UK in London The Disappeared does look pretty good, the production values are solid but the final ten minutes or so are too dark & there's too much of that shaky camera rubbish. The cast do a great job to be fair, the leads are excellent but in a way that makes the film even more downbeat than it already is.

The Disappeared is a film that I can look at & see that it's very well made with excellent acting & a potentially strong story but the whole downbeat atmosphere, The Sixth Sense twist & questions left unanswered by the conclusion left me feeling underwhelmed. Some may like it's gritty approach but I didn't I'm afraid.

I would describe The Disappeared less as a horror and more an exploration of how many genre tropes can be aimed for and missed by so wide a margin. If you take this film as the latter, then you'll enjoy it as much as you would Green Lantern. If you're looking for a thrilling psychological horror ghost story, then I'm sorry to disappoint you but this isn't your movie.

What starts as an interesting ghost story quickly develops into a humdrum ghost story, into a strung- out one liner from Friends. Ever seen the episode where Joey says the latest film he will appear in must be good because it contains the line "She's been deeeeaaad for ten yeeeaaaars"? The Disappeared is a horror that feels as if such a twist is clever. It isn't.

All in all, this film is predictable, poorly written, and I can safely say that I didn't care about any of the underdeveloped characters. I can't see why it's garnered so many good reviews...well, weirder things have happened, such as every pointless and nonsensical plot 'twist' in The Disappeared.

All in all, don't watch it. It's one of, if not the worst, movie I have ever had the misfortune of seeing.

*****MAY CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS****

A boy and his father have a difficult relationship and they live together in a small flat in a big high-rise block of ugly, apartments for unliked people, that is alienating and depersonalising. Wasn't there a movement to get rid of these high-rises about forty or fifty years ago? Has society regressed in THIS way ALSO, since Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" came out in 1971?!

So, anyway, it is all so sad and depressing. The unlikable teenage boy's younger brother has disappeared while playing in one of the concrete playgrounds attached to these apartments, and there is so much unresolved grief accompanied by unexplained and suspicious circumstances that it is depressing to everyone around them, as well as to themselves, and is associated with anger and violent emotional responses everywhere. And on top of the inhuman architectural depravity there is an overbearing atmosphere of threats of being further degraded by the mental health system, which seems to have goody-goody government and church-employed community-vampires preying on these people - who are being kept like sardines in a human warehouse 24 hours a day - popping in to see if "everything's alright?"; "Are you alright?" being the constantly repeated question in this environment - people nervously checking on each other all the time.

Throughout this movie there is a prevailing and constant fear - or paranoia - being expressed, of experiences that are outside of "normal" human experience, so when the boy begins hearing and seeing things that aren't there (from other people's perspectives), he is just one step away from being turned-in, abducted, and kept kidnapped indefinitely, by the local mental hospital. To add to this tension, which gets so bad that his best friend calls him a "psycho" and kicks him out of his flat in paranoid-terror when he turns to him to talk about his psychic experiences, unable to communicate with his father, there is also a widespread adoption of a culture of patriarchal suppression of selfhood, so that everywhere there are people releasing and expressing their personal hangups in violent and difficult emotional outbursts.

***POSSIBLE, BUT VERY CRYPTIC SPOILER IN THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH****

I do think this film has something important to say about society's ills being obviously and intentionally inflicted from above due to unadmitted-to pressures and society's self-censorship. There is also a parallel Christian patriarchal religious dimension - you will see if you watch this movie - in which Christianity (like the mental-health system employees) pretends to be the saviour of the soul, while, in reality, being the disease that it claims to cure and the imprisoner of the soul ... I think the symbolism in this film is talking about evil, per se, and the preying Anglican Church counsellor's use of the fiery inversion of the Christian cross as a symbol of pure evil in the film is an IRONIC inversion, just as is the mental health system claiming to be the saviour of the people that THEY prey upon and whom THEY mentally torture - as human-cargo in THEIR concrete prisons.

Into this dismal and claustrophobic setting comes the need for resolution and understanding of what is happening around and to the protagonist; a psychic need for truth and meaning, and a search for a reason, perhaps the identity of a killer or killers; and a need to know the fate of a missing sibling.

As social-commentary I do applaud the making of this movie, for its EDUCATIVE value. But it is painful to witness the constant false-angst, this pot, boiling with emotional pain, and the personal hangups that these people maintain through lack of honesty with their own inner-thoughts and their true-identities - the protagonist, himself, is no more than a crippled cardboard cut-out, not a true human being at all! The music in this movie only makes it worse - oh, pull the heartstrings! Why use this awful, crappy and oh, so patronising music?! What are you inflicting it upon us for?! Two other examples I can easily and convincingly suggest, from Britain, are the movie "Flood"(2008) and the new "Doctor Who" (from 2005), and just about every drama, especially made for Australian television (Federal Government-required ocker-brainwashing) made in Australia, such as the recent movie "Sanctum"(2011), which appears to be struggling in torment and agony with issues of paedophilia.

But social-commentary alone does not make good entertaining horror-movies, I am sorry. And to make it worse, this movie is blatantly copying the brilliantly original "The Sixth Sense" (1999) - but in a deprived, violent setting, where boys are committed to the pointless, banal, stupid, destructive, malicious and unreasonable obsession and self-deception of proving their manhood, to the mutually assured mental and psychic destruction of every human being in the neighbourhood. So it is both visually and conceptually unappealing, AND repelling, AND, to top it off, derivative. And I found that to be a bad flaw with the ending, which seems to compete with "The Sixth Sense", but, unlike "The Sixth Sense" does not leave you, the audience, with a chilling realization - the ending is more like a one-line twist, a throw-away line that is only MILDLY surprising, and no shock, as it is presumably intended to be, at all.

Young Tom Ryan has gone missing. As expected, the effects on his father Jake (Greg Wise) and brother Matt (Harry Treadaway) have taken their toll. Jake has taken to drink, and Matthew appears to be suffering from mental instability, hearing Tom's voice on recordings when they aren't there and falling prey to wild paranoia. It doesn't help that the estate on which they live is not particularly sensitive to the situation: the local kids use Matt's fragile mental state as an excuse - not that they feel they need an excuse - to bully him.

Director and co-writer Johnny Kevorkian has crafted a story that might have been told before, but in a way that never allows the attention to wander. The atmosphere of the run-down area, and the effect it has on the people living there, is powerfully conveyed. The mystery of Matt's absent mother is only hinted at, and used to fuel the lad's adverse feelings about his father; equally, Jake tries hard not to blame his son's negligence for young Tom's disappearance.

The character of Amy is an adolescent boy's dream - funny, pretty and touchingly loyal to an outcast. Ros Leeming plays her as troubled and appealing - almost too good to be true. Her story, although signposted fairly early on, turns out to be the most tragically powerful of all.

That the cause of the mystery is entirely physical is almost disappointing. With a growing unease because of a keenly felt spiritual possibility, events seemed to be looming toward a more ethereal villainy. However, maintaining situations within rationality keeps things real, and doesn't shy away from the mental toll the situation has taken on the sensitive Matt.

This is an excellent film and highly recommended. My score is 8 out of 10.

In a harsh neighbourhood, a young boy disappears from a playground. His older brother, a teenager, is tormented by the idea that he should have supervised him more closely. Crushed, ill and embittered, he hears the child's voice - or does he ?

Now this is a relentlessly grim movie, and not only because it deals with the disappearance of a child and the tormented despair of its relatives. The story is set in a poor neighbourhood disfigured by substance abuse and delinquency, where growing up is about as dangerous as walking the tightrope, even for adolescents lucky enough to have a full collection of relatives. Hope and comfort are as rare as blue roses and even the local church, which should be a beacon of spiritual help, falls down on the job. In fact it falls down on the job rather spectacularly : what should have been a place of innocence and a door unto Heaven becomes a sewer into Hell.

In other words, "The Disappeared" is not feel-good cinema : it makes for seriously dark and sombre viewing, from the first minute to the last. However, if you're willing to take this fact into your stride, you'll discover an intelligent, elegantly constructed horror movie with very good performances. It contains many a frightening moment and works up to a nail-biting confrontation between the teenage protagonist and a villain of extreme cruelty and evil.

Recommended.

After a tragic accident, and a stay at mental health unit, Matthew returns to his home with his father, and the disappearance of his brother still looming over them.

Matthew watches a few tapes of appeals and soon, starts to hear his brother calling him and sees I'm from afar.

He appeals to his father, but he seems to blame him for his brothers disappearance, after all, he was supposed to be looking after him, but had a party and let him go to the playground.

So Matthew is trying to rebuild his life, and although his friends and his councillor support him, he cannot let go. And neither can his brother.......

It's really well acted, and the lead is phenomenal, as is the actor playing his father. And although nothing really happens throughout the film to shock, the build up and the brooding atmosphere of the tower block keeps you interested.

The best aspect of the film is the relay ship between Matthew and his father. Bothe are really to blame for the boys disappearance, but both know this and have ammunition for one another. The father is the type with a short temper, and he at times seems like he is going to explode.

The final third lets the side down a little though, going for the old serial killer routine and although some of the twists are really obvious from the start (Amy for one is the most obvious) it does try to treat the viewer as intelligent being rather than a gore hound.

The serial killer side of the film was hopefully just for absolution for the missing boy, but it really does feel out of place here.

But other than that, it's an amazing piece of cinema with two wonderful performances from the two leads.