If you’ve ever had a chance to see a movie that makes you think “this would work better as” any other genre except the one you were promised in the trailer, get ready because Voices is a movie that lives up to this curse.

After losing her father, Lilly (Valerie Jane Parker) loses her sight and her mother at a young age after a car accident. Due to this event, doctors believe that she has begun to overdevelop her hearing capacity since it is the most common thing to happen after losing the visual sense, but her life takes an unexpected turn when she realizes that one sense has been replaced by another that will put her in contact with the parallel world of the remaining dead anchored to Earth. But will this be her greatest benefit or danger to her life?

Voices develops Lilly’s background in detail that could even boldly function as a Sunday drama available on Lifetime. Sadly, the supernatural element is added to the mix like carrots to soup— in a despicable way and for no reason. During the first 30 minutes there is an interesting plot where the fact that Lilly can talk to ghosts is barely mentioned. As I said, it is a well-constructed drama but as a horror film it is a mess: after the first act it forgets its main story and introduces a character with interesting motifs but in the end it excises it halfway to introduce the story of other characters that cross it just to extend time further and reduce the patience of those who were expecting a scary movie and probably lost interest after three vengeful ghosts for no reason— it’s like the origins story of something great to come but never comes to pass as a satisfying climax. The ending is sort of good but the convoluted mess of story might not let the viewer enjoy it as much as they would want to.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it tries to handle a lot of plots but fails to commit to any— it just pulls at what the writer comes up with. It introduces two very interesting ideas that, if they had wanted to keep developing them, could rank it as the best independent dramatic thriller film. However, the final product is something that lost its mind like its main character and all sense went overboard and slowly let the ship begin to sink with no hope of leaving any survivors.

Voices is pretty much a mix of Insidious without the jump-scares and The Sixth Sense minus two— if you get my point. Developed by descriptive voiceovers and an overload of flashbacks, this film had so much potential but the indecisive nature of its script let it burn slowly into the ground as another try to replicate greatness. All I can say is that I don’t want this movie to be “my baby” and it is up to you if you want it to be yours.

 

5 OUT OF 10 RANDOM GHOSTS

 

Voices
RATING: N/A
Voices - Official Trailer
Runtime: 108 Mins.
Directed By:
Written By:

About the Author

Brandon Henry was born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, just south of the border of San Diego. His birthplace is the main reason nothing really scares him (kidding… it’s a very safe place). His love for horror films came when his parents accidentally took him to watch Scream, at the age of 6, thinking that it was a safe-choice because it starred “that girl from Friends”. At 12, he experienced the first of many paranormal events in his life. While he waits to be possessed by the spirit of a satanic mechanic, he works as a Safety Engineer and enjoys going to the theater, watching movies and falling asleep while reading a book. Follow him on Instagram @brndnhnry and on Twitter @brandon_henry.