Rish's Reviews
I was lucky enough to go to a test screening of The Gift recently at Paramount Pictures. I am a pretty big Sam Raimi fan, and I was lucky enough to see it with Mr. Raimi in the room.
I won't say much to spoil the film except to say it starred Cate Blanchett as a widower with the gift-slash-curse of being able to see into people's past or future. When someone in the town disappears, she is approached to see if she can discover the truth behind what happened.
The cast was excellent in roles cast very much against type, particularly Cate Blanchett in the lead role. She was very strong, yet vulnerable, caring, yet believable, and did a perfect American Southern accent. Also great was Keanu Reeves, in a truly despicable part as a wife-beating redneck. Greg Kinnear was the soft-spoken elementary school principal, Katie Holmes was the rich bitch Southern belle, and Giovanni Ribisi as the haunted simpleton mechanic. It was a small film, with very few special effects, and a budget probably the same size as the first Evil Dead (not counting actors' salaries). But it had a unique atmosphere to it (swampy waters, grey skies, and gnarled trees) that helped make things spooky even when nothing scary was happening. The movie was a bit slow-going at the beginning, introducing characters, building backstory, and I even thought I might not review it for the page, ‘cause it just wasn't Horror enough. But after the first forty minutes or so, suddenly, things got pretty spooky. I have to admit to you that I held my breath through more than one scene because I was scared by it. I have become a very weak boy, and I can't stand things to jump out at me or hear loud noises on the screen all of a sudden.
I'm unsure when this will be released, but when it does come out, I'm sure it will be unfavourably compared to The Sixth Sense, since there are a couple of similar elements (though, to be honest, The Gift is more closely related to the equally-recent Stir of Echoes). Still, it was pretty good on its own. Sam Raimi knows the horror genre, even if Paramount wouldn't be caught dead calling this a horror film. He knows, though. For example, the biggest scare in the film (which the guy next to me chided me about my reaction to) came when we knew there was going to be a scare, it was sustained, and then it came . . . bam! So, a second later, when we've just finished screaming and our minds are letting their guard down again (something so fast we don't even realize it's happening), he hit us with an even bigger scare . . . BAM! That was the one. And most directors couldn't do that--they wouldn't know how. Thanks, Sam.
Note: I was further lucky to meet Mr. Raimi a few months later and tell him that his movie scared the hell out of me. He seemed to take this as pretty high praise, as well he should.

The tyranist's thoughts
As the years go by, it becomes more and more apparent that Sam Raimi has not just a gift for horror, but a gift for film. In the case of a movie like A Simple Plan, I longed to tell the world how good the movie was but lacked the proper forum. Luckily, such is not true with The Gift. While it is arguably not a horror film, there is more than enough to frighten here. In fact, the audience I was in was gasping more than a drowning man.
I'm sure that there are some differences between the film that I saw on opening weekend and the film that Rish saw all those months ago, but really, I think the substance must have stayed the same since we had very similar reactions to it. Sam Raimi has created another movie filled with passion and depth, but that is entertaining enough to keep people in their seats. Set in a moody backwoods Georgia, the setting and music combined to make the movie as surreal as a dream. Add in some wonderful performances and the movie could be something that really happened and is only surfacing now after all the years I've repressed it. Cate Blanchett was simply fantastic and the same goes for the rest of the cast. I don't think I've ever seen a director get quite as much out of Keanu Reeves.
For those of you who are Sam Raimi fans and have somehow not seen this yet, I'd highly recommend it. Unless you simply hated A Simple Plan. Much of the movie had a similar feel although The Gift is never even close to as desperate and painful. For everyone else, I'd recommend this to mystery fans and horror fans alike. There's something for everyone here.