The Dead Will Tell (2004)

Emily Parker is haunted by visions of a woman from the past soon after receiving an antique engagement ring from her fiancé.

Director:

Stephen Kay

Writers:

Mark Kruger, Nancy Fichman

Stars:

Anne Heche, Kathleen Quinlan, Chris Sarandon

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Anne Heche	...	Emily Parker
Kathleen Quinlan	...	Beth Hytner
Chris Sarandon	...	Paul Hamlin
Eva Longoria	...	Jeanie
David Andrews	...	John Hytner
Jonathan LaPaglia	...	Billy Hytner
Kate Jennings Grant	...	Liz
Leigh Jones	...	Marie Salinger
Gary Grubbs	...	Detective Ed Landry
Don Brady	...	Mr. Beech
Ryan Rilette	...	Hank Beech
Deneen Tyler	...	Dr. Miller
Michael Arata	...	Desk Sergeant
Amanda Baker	...	Girl in Marsh
Kyle Clements	...	Boy in Marsh (as Kyle Russell Clements)

Storyline

In New Orleans, the lawyer Emily Parker meets the handsome Billy Hytner by chance; they date and fall immediately in love for each other. One month later, Billy proposes her and gives an engagement ring he bought in an antiquary shop. From this moment on, Emily has visions of a weird woman and she decides to investigate about the previous owner of the antique ring. She discovers that the woman that is haunting her is Marie Salinger, who disappeared in 1969, and the police had found only her severed finger with the ring. Her fiancé Paul Hamlin was accused of the murder but considered not-guilty by the jury. Meanwhile, Emily meets Billy's parents and is not accepted by her future mother-in-law Beth Hytner. Emily continues to investigate the murder, disclosing the truth about Marie's death.

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Plot Keywords:

false accusation | wedding ring | ghost | drowning | 

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Taglines:

The dead are talking.

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English German

Release Date:

24 October 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Les fantômes de l'amour

Filming Locations:

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Barbara Lieberman Productions, Granada Entertainment, Robert Greenwald Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

87 min 120 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

User Reviews

Decent and enjoyable ghost story

After receiving an antique engagement ring from her fiancée, a woman's visions of a ghost following her lead her to discover a startling secret about the past and its rightful owner and races to put an end to the haunting.

This was quite an enjoyable and interesting Lifetime Channel effort. This one manages to get a lot right here detailing the ghostly activity, which is first given quite a nice build-up here of the visions and encounters around town before going into the thumping footsteps in the different floors, controlling the atmosphere around her or fixating on the TV shows from the 60s that sets this one up quite nicely. These here are enough to work a fine atmosphere here when this one manages to bring about quite thrilling ghostly encounters are brought along early in here which makes for a really quick, breezy pace throughout here. That the first encounter, seeing her out on the streets just after the engagement comes about is nicely due to the quick time here, a later scene in her house where she follows the watery footprints to the window where she has a great encounter that turns out to be the film's highlight scene, another one of the car going out of control on the streets and a rather impressive series of scenes at the ruined studio which comes off rather well here in making the supernatural action work here. As well, the finale is really enjoyable here with the modern-day action nicely mirroring the flashback revelation of the actual crime as there's some rather fun times trapping her there and the stalking makes for quite a fun time. These here are helped along by the other big point here in the actual mystery which comes across rather well as the start with the appearing ghost following her, showing up in photographs and finally interacting among her life which spurs the discovery of the connection to the past by putting it all together and getting some rather suspenseful times here. These are enough to hold off the few small flaws in this one. The biggest issue to this one is the rather downbeat investigation of the actual mystery which tends to offer up an engrossing angle but is badly executed. There's little interest here in how the murder gets solved since it tends to run through the usual manner of spotlighting scenes mainly as a way to give her screen-time which is a big channel requirement. It's not as though the scene are all that bad but are just not filled with any kind of supernatural attacks or even ghostly activities throughout here, replaced mainly with scenes of her crying out for others or being tormented by the case which really lowers the amount of time here on the horror. It easily could've infused a few more encounters along the way to help out in that regard and still keep the same results which is what makes this a little disappointing. The only other flaw to this one is the rather lame story here that follows many of those elements simply to show that, from the family hospitality to her and the attitude of the cop that's all rather cliché enough to give this that familiar feel without doing anything else for it. Otherwise, this one was rather fun.

Rated Unrated/PG-13: Violence and Language.