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A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

Blistering performances.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

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.

This movie was a pleasant surprise on all accounts. It's fairly creepy, has a good pace and is very well acted. Why they should want to advertise this as a horror movie is beyond me, it's not horror at all, more a supernatural thriller, like (for instance) Dragonfly is; like that one it's about dead people who try to communicate with the living to pass on an important message. For the die-hard horror fans there's not much to enjoy: no graphic killings, no gore, hardly any blood-shed and no spectacular special effects; the creepiness is mainly atmospheric, but to me (and I'm actually a big horror fan myself) it totally worked, so kudos to Johnny Kevorkian who directed and (co-)wrote this movie. The whole project impresses as low-budgeted, but they made that cleverly work in favor of the movie, the dreadful and desolate surroundings of the suburban apartment-buildings adding up to the needed surreal atmosphere. Young Harry Treadaway gives a fine and very convincing performance as the traumatized and guilt-ridden Matthew who feels responsible for his little brothers disappearance one evening when he was having a booze and pot party on his room with friends and more or less forgot about his brother playing alone outside. Treadaways acting is impressive: very restrained and subtle and with a surprising maturity. Gregg Wise plays the father with equal perfection, the awkward and strained relationship between the two of them gets palpable in an almost claustrophobic way. A special mention to Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter films!) who gives a good performance in his small role as Matthews buddy Simon. My only slight criticism is more general in respect to this kind of films: I always wonder why dead people are supposed to follow such elaborate and cryptic schemes to deliver an important message - can't they just announce it fair and square in a dream or write it down supernaturally on a piece of paper?! Now poor Matthew has to spend a whole movie trying to decipher all these weird goings-on! And boy, they are really stretching the limits of credibility in this one! I mean: I can live with hearing the voice of a dead loved-one, or seeing a dead person from the corner of your eyes flash by. But spending many a day with a girlfriend (and making out with her!), who afterwards turns out to be already dead ?! Visiting a neighborhood medium and even receiving a drawing from her little child when afterwards both turned out to having been dead for a long time too?!? It maybe was a bit too much to swallow, but anyway, it sort of comes with this kind of territory and it didn't diminish my appreciation at all. I give the movie a heartfelt 9 out of 10!

Saw this film last night at the ICA and then afterwards there was a Q&A session which included Tom and Johnny Kevorkian and Neil Murphy who both co-wrote and co-produced the film. The film was excellent. Very atmospheric and probably more frightening because it is set in such a mundane setting. Not Gothic horror but backyard horror - but horror nonetheless. The acting was superb by the young cast leads, Harry Treadaway and Tom Felton. The cinematography used a colour palate that reflected the dreary humdrum life that was obviously the norm for the characters. The editing could have been tightened up a little but overall the pace was well set. The music was perfectly written to reflect everything you saw on screen without being dominant or leading where the screen images didn't follow.A truly frightening experience but one I can well recommend.