11:11 (2004)

User Rating:

3.9/10   

Director:

Michael Bafaro

Writers:

Michael Bafaro (screenplay)
Michael Bafaro (story)

Release Date:

28 February 2004 (Canada)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Evil has a new number

Plot:

A troubled young woman, haunted by her mother's ghost, is suddenly confronted by paranormal events which are wreaking havoc on her small college town. She struggles to understand the meaning of these supernatural events...

Plot Keywords:

College | Car Accident | Fight Scene | Escaped Convict | Funeral

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Laura Mennell	...	Sara Tobias
Paul Dzenkiw	...	Seth
Christie Will	...	Raden
Kristina Copeland	...	Claire, Sara's Mom
Cathy Weseluck	...	Prof. Kosta
Chris Harrison	...	Jake
Michael St. John Smith	...	Sheriff Ben
Matt Bellefleur	...	Drake
Amy Adamson	...	Dacia
Laura Jayne McDonald	...	Theresa (as Laura Jayne MacDonald)
Jane Sowerby	...	Aunt Lydia
Glenn Ennis	...	Sara's Father (as Glen Ennis)
Ingrid Libera	...	Young Sara
Jennifer Bishop	...	Young Raden
Samantha Joy	...	Young Claire

Also Known As:

11:11: The Gate
Hell's Gate 11:11 (USA) (DVD title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and language.

Runtime:

Canada:95 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | South Korea:15 | Finland:K-15 | Spain:13 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: When Sara meets with her professor to request the monitoring equipment, the boom mic casts a noticeable moving shadow on the rows of desks in the background.

The proverbial game of two halves...

The film starts well enough. It is a truly terrifying scene as a couple of fugitives on the run from the law tear apart an innocent family living in a secluded country cottage by killing the mother and father. The young daughter only manages to escape with the aid of a mysterious spectre, who kills the two aggressors while she covers in a downstairs cupboard. Then, we catch up with her 15 years later as a drug-addled student researching the supernatural, living with her promiscuous aunt and being looked after by a mysterious redhead. She has no real friends, was almost raped at a party and keeps having bizarre visions which no-one else can see. So yep, life is grand. Things get a lot more pleasant when she has a falling out with her mum's sister, who is later found dead in a bathtub under suspicious circumstances with 11 etched into her forehead. Hmm, I wonder who the police's main suspect will be? This is quickly followed by more deaths, all linked by their relation to our heroine having been on bad terms with them before their passing. Could she be the culprit, or perhaps the explanation could be something of a more ethereal nature? Clue: If you think the former, you've picked up the wrong movie from Blockbuster. Go back and get the correct one, short-sighted gimp.

As I said, I was all ready to fast-forward to the good parts, safe in the knowledge that I wasn't missing out on anything but a mediocre suspense potboiler. But the first ten minutes grabbed me, and I decided to give it a chance. I was quite pleasantly surprised: it certainly wasn't a masterpiece but the acting was good enough and the script kept throwing up intriguing situations of which I looked forward to finding the solution to. Alas, 45 minutes in, I realised my attention start to wander during a long sequence where the main character is walking round a library, doing nothing. We then get a cheap scare, followed by quarter of an hour of goddledegook about the paranormal between her and her new hunk of a boyfriend. Things only got worse from there, as the promising beginning is thrown out the window as we get one unconvincing plot twist after another, followed by an ending so anti-climatic it's like being promised the moon and ending up with a teeny weeny meteorite instead. Pathetic.

If it was bad all the way through, it would have been far easier to swallow. The fact that it starts at a canter and barely ends with a whimper is not just disappointing, it is heartbreaking. How can something which began so promisingly end up being so formulaic? I don't know, and I don't particularly care. I'll just give the writer and director a bit of advice for next time: Don't spend 5 weeks writing the first part of your screenplay, then 5 minutes finishing the rest. You tend to notice these things in the final product when you treat your project as sloppily as you have here... 3/10