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Great Film overall

Excellent but underrated film

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This adaptation of the Dean R. Koontz novel fails to really get any sparks going; in fact, were it not for some sex, nudity, and profanity, one might swear it was done for TV. The low production values don't do it any favours, nor does the attempt to fit the story into a standard hour and a half length. It's mildly effective, at least in the early going, but the filmmakers ran out of money at some point and came up with a conventional ending that is equal parts silly and squirm inducing. Even the big reveal here comes off as somewhat banal. Even the actors don't seem to really believe in the material.Victoria Tennant ("Flowers in the Attic") stars as Hilary, a journalist who less than three minutes into the film is attacked in her own home by Bruno (Canadian actor Jean LeClerc of 'All My Children'), whom she recognizes as a man whom she'd recently interviewed. Things get bizarre when first he seems to have an alibi for the night in question, and later, when he's attacked her for a second time and she's supposedly killed him, he turns up alive and well. Hilary and well meaning nice guy detective Tony (Chris Sarandon of "Fright Night" '85 and "Child's Play") decide to solve the mystery on their own time, tracing Bruno back to his home town of Lee Valley. They discover some pretty twisted stuff.Just judging by the material here, this could probably have inspired a somewhat better film, but it simply lacks style and doesn't have much punch. Tennant and Sarandon are passable but they've been better utilized in other things. Saving the picture to a degree is LeClerc, who creates a great screen psycho. Viewers who've seen their fair share of Canadian made movies will recognize supporting players Keith Knight ("My Bloody Valentine" '81) as the creepy Avril, Peter MacNeill ("A History of Violence") as misogynistic detective Frank, Jackie Burroughs ("The Dead Zone") as exposition provider Mrs. Yancey, and Vlasta Vrana ("Shivers") as a sheriff, as well as the ever endearing Eric Christmas ("Porky's") as cranky lawyer Rinehart.An effort from the legendary Canucksploitation producers, John Dunning and Andre Link ("Happy Birthday to Me", the aforementioned "My Bloody Valentine"), "Whispers" manages to remain watchable but is forgettable once it's over.Five out of 10.

The problem is that in the book you have lots of thought going in in peoples heads and that is what keeps the book so interesting you are always learning something about the characters and you get a chance to fall in love with them but the movie just does not let you get involved with the characters. Still I use the movie as a way to let my husband see a little about the book I have been reading so that he knows what was going on. Some things were changed quite a bit but it is easy to see why. you can not turn a 400+ page book into an OK length movie without changing some things to fit in the plot. My point is it will not kill you if you see this movie, but then again just read the book instead. OK.

boring flick is lame and stupid all around with lame script poor execution and rotten acting did not help this lame flick it bounces unevenly between thriller and horror and does neither very well avoid * out of 5

The movie version of Whispers just does not do Dean Koontz' excellent novel justice, but it is still enjoyable and stuck fairly close to the original plotline created by Dean Koontz. The story is twisted and gruesome and has to do with a woman being stalked by a serial killer. Sounds simple, right? However the nasty, perverse elements of the story make this unique. This, again, was okay but if Koontz had scripted it would have been a lot better. The actress who played Hilary was about ten years too old for the part, had the wrong hair color (Hilary had long, black hair in the book) and I detected a faint British accent. Chris Sarandon was okay as Tony, nothing special, and the actor who played Bruno was very good, even though it wasn't how I imagined Bruno. I suggest that anyone who may be interested in seeing this, read the book first if you really want to. It's much better than the movie.