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2012 - 80m.
Canada

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh wants to challenge you. It's a rare genre flick that's more concerned with making you question just what it is to be a human being and how you behave in your relationships with your family. It's the quiet sort of effort that would be able to prove to non-horror people that there is, in fact, intelligent fare within the genre. At the same time, there is enough supernatural goings on and scares to keep your interest and an ambiguous finish that will likely stick with you for a little while after you've watched it.

As the debut feature for Rue Morgue Magazine founder Rodrigo Gudino, this is basically a one person show as Aaron Poole stars as Leon who as the film opens has arrived at his recently deceased mother's ominous house to try and sort out her possessions and decide what to do with everything he has inherited. Through various news clippings and some morose narration from his mother Rosalind (voiced by the legendary Vanessa Redgrave) we learn that the relationship between Leon and his mom was strained at best, that said estrangement caused such depression, and that most of the problems came from his mother having odd religious leanings that are a mix of regular belief and gothic trappings - which also lends the film some great production design as the already old fashioned looking house is littered with lots of antique crosses, Wiccan-like symbols, strange decorative statues and given an organic feel.

Since most of the secondary characters, including Redgrave, never really appear on screen (most are through phone calls and voice-over) we end up being stuck in the spooky old house with Aaron. At first we're unsure where Gudino is going with the story as there are an awful lot of lingering shots and the camera pans over various sets while Rosalind tells us of her loneliness and tries to justify her past treatment of Leon - the biggest trauma of which was something called the "candle game". Meanwhile, Leon is dealing with her death on his own terms and getting decidedly creeped out by his surroundings, which turns out to be justified when he glimpses a strange creature in the backyard and other anomalies start occurring. Did Leon make a mistake finally coming home after all these years? And what exactly does Rosalind want with him?

Not being overly familiar with Poole, who it seems has a big resume of appearances in syndicated made-in-Canada TV series, I am impressed with how well he carries the movie. He conveys Leon's struggles with guilt, confusion, and eventual horror in a more mature way than you'd expect from a "horror" film. I was expecting a lot more of Redgrave going in, and she does get a really unsettling moment in the finale, but the sad and emotional way she delivers most of her narration makes up for it.

I can't stress enough how you need to approach this expecting a low-key 80 minutes. It just manages to be completely engrossing even though not a lot happens for the first half. The build-up, paired with a moody musical score by Mercan Dede, just feels oppressive and your anticipation of something bad happening keeps you on edge. At the same time, thanks to Gudino's script, we're drawn into Leon's anguished past and I really feel like there was some autobiographical elements to the story due to how the film manages to raise thoughtful questions of faith and family while wedging in an "old dark house" structure. It's a fascinating risk and one completely unexpected from the Canadian-based Rue Morgue. (Chris Hartley, 5/28/14)

Directed By: Rodrigo Gudino.
Written By: Rodrigo Gudino.

Starring: Aaron Poole, Vanessa Redgrave, Julian Richings, Stephen Eric McIntyre.