Walled In – Dir Gilles Paquet-Brenner, starring Mischa Barton, Deborah Kara Unger, Cameron Bright

Smart, young and beautiful Sam Walczak has just graduated from engineering school. Her first assignment finds herself in the remote Scottish swamps, carrying out what should be a simple structural analysis of a supposedly desolate building before it can be demolished. But Sam soon realises there are still a few lingering tenants in the building – both alive and dead.

 

You could be forgiven for assuming that a low-budget horror-thriller starring Mischa Barton doesn’t equal an effective, sell-out success. But while the film has been relegated to the direct-to-DVD bin, it’s not as bad as it might sound (Scottish swamps?). Barton delivers a surprisingly effective and perfectly chilling performance – and overall the film isn’t a bad adaptation of the French best-selling novel, Les Emmures.

What lets Walled In down is the lacklustre, damp ending, which deflates an otherwise dark and sinister story.

Interested in seeing this movie? Visit the Mall Movies page to see if it showing in a cinema near you, or visit the directory listings to get contact details for all the Abu Dhabi cinemas.