Walled In (2009)

A demolition company agent uncovers the horrifying secrets held within a building she's having razed.

Director:

Gilles Paquet-Brenner

Writers:

Serge Brussolo (novel), Rodolphe Tissot

Stars:

Tim Allen, Mischa Barton, Darla Biccum

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Tim Allen	...	Police Officer (as Timothy Allen)
Mischa Barton	...	Sam
Darla Biccum	...	Liz Walczak
Cameron Bright	...	Jimmy
Eugene Clark	...	Burnett
Mark D. Claxton	...	Richard (as Mark Claxton)
Pascal Greggory	...	Malestrazza
Shannon Jardine	...	Maureen
Noam Jenkins	...	Peter
Sophi Knight	...	Julie
Taylor Leslie	...	Lucy Walczak
Emily McAfee	...	Young Sam
Jane Redlyon	...	Denise
Rob Roy	...	Charles Walczak
Josh Strait	...	Vincent Walczak

Storyline

A young woman who recently graduated from engineering school travels to a remote location to supervise the demolition of a mysterious building. She soon discovers the horrifying secrets of the building and its past inhabitants, many of whom were victims of a vicious murderer who entombed his prey alive within its walls. Now she must turn the tables on the killer before she becomes his latest victim.

---

Plot Keywords:

building | demolition | tenant | engineer | cement | 

---

Taglines:

Some secrets are best left buried.

---

Genres:

Horror | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some violence

Details

Country:

USA France Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 June 2009 (Mexico)

Also Known As:

A Prisioneira

Filming Locations:

Canada Saskatchewan Production Studios, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Experiences Films,Forecast Pictures,Leomax Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min (European Film Market)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although a double was employed to run through everything beforehand and make sure it was safe, Mischa Barton performed all of her own stunts.

---

Goofs

When Sam is researching the building on the Internet, the article she reads spells architect wrongly.

---

Quotes

[last lines]
Sam Walczak: In his lifetime Malestrazza designed 27 buildings, all of which are still standing. This one he called his masterpiece. There are no current plans to demolish it.

---

Connections

References The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

User Reviews

Walled In: a Review of Reviews

Samantha Walczak (Mischa Barton) is the first Walczak to graduate college, and follows the family tradition of demolition, despite her love of architecture. She is sent on her first assignment to a building from an eccentric architect, Joseph Malestrazza, who cemented the bodies of people into his walls, including himself. This allegedly gives the building immortality, which is a bit of a problem when you're in charge of demolishing it. In the battle between demolition expert and spiritual architecture, who can win?

I watched this film, and found myself let down after the first ten minutes. I enjoyed the opening scene with a young girl becoming part of the building -- more scenes like this would have sold the film -- and the credits over newspaper articles detailing horrific murders tied to the building. But the remainder of the film just flopped and dragged like a captured fish out of water, and to say what I would say and say it better, I defer to the reviews of Michael DeZubiria and Horror.Com's Staci Layne Wilson. (I am reluctant to encourage readers to venture from Killer Reviews, but these are excellent writers.)

Wilson touches on all the right allusions, hinting that "Walled In" has aspects of Argento, Poe, Roeg, Polanski and Cocteau -- names you don't just throw around. DeZubiria compares the story in some respects to Mark Z. Danielewski's unique 2000 novel "House of Leaves". But Wilson is right when she says the directing "plays it safe" and falls short of all these looming figures, and the accompanying cinematography is "not very innovative", which is unfortunate for a film set in a building as interestingly bizarre as this one. DeZubiria flatly states that "Walled In" "blatantly rips off a whole series of other horror movies".

Wilson and DeZubiria both find the film discourages, rather than encourages, reading of the original book -- Serge Brussolo's novel "Les Emmeures". Wilson says "the movie quelled my curiosity" and DeZubiria bluntly says the book "must have been better than this movie" but "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to bring myself to read the book". As I found the plot to be largely a rehashing of "Thirteen Ghosts", and the storyline as given in the film to be boring, I have to concur -- the book is likely better than the film, but doesn't seem worth my time to seek out.

DeZubiria doesn't reveal the end, but says it's "so dumb that I don't want to bother spending my time explaining it", and that's a fair assessment. I seriously had a difficult time sitting through half the movie, it was a bit of cinematic torture to make it to the end. The "making of" featurette doesn't help or add any value to the DVD. Wilson rightly says it's nothing more than back-patting. If you want to see the cast and crew congratulate themselves on a boring movie, be my guest. But I think these two reviewers got it right -- there are many other authors and directors who deserve to have their films appreciated. Read and watch those novels and films, and leave this one to be quickly forgotten in your local video store's discount bin.