After looking at the ratings and other user comments for this film on IMDb i was a bit unsure about purchasing this film. But after watching it i have to say that i was greatly, and pleasantly surprised at how good it was. The film was interesting and intriguing all the way through and i thought that all the roles were played very well, especially Mark Strong and Sienna Guillory, whose stunning acting carried the film very well. I also thought the film had a good ending that concluded it well and left me satisfied with all loose ends. Overall, i'd say that this film is a great watch and i thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end.

Superstition starts in Italy where nineteen year old English teenager Julie McCullough (Sienna Guillory) is working for the Cenci's as an au pair looking after their young child Claudio, however one night tragedy strikes & a fire breaks out in the child's bedroom in which he dies. Julie is accused & charged with arson & murder, the public prosecutor Isabella Flores (Frances Barber) ask's her friend & defence lawyer Antonio Gabrieli (Mark Strong) to represent Julie which he agrees to. The police forensic experts have no idea how the fire started & the Italian press baying for blood dub Julie a witch, the evidence is against Julie as it seems is the whole of Italy. Things look bleak for Julie but then Antonio is contacted by a professor who may have a very unusual & very supernatural explanation for what happened...This English, Dutch & Lexembourg co-production was directed by Kenneth Hope & if you stumble across Superstition without knowing anything about it you would be forgiven for thinking that it is a supernatural horror film which it isn't. The script by Kate Dennis & Paul Hoffman is much more of a courtroom drama than a straight horror film, in fact apart from one or two supernatural overtones I wouldn't call Superstition a horror film at all. The vast majority of the film is made up of the courtroom scenes, the personal angst surrounding Julie & the situation she finds herself in & her defence lawyer Antonio being drawn into her world. Superstition is very much a character driven piece, in fact Superstition lives or dies by it's character's since it's a very exposition heavy film with very little in the way of dramatic incident. Luckily the character's are actually excellently fleshed out to a degree where you care about them, the relationship's between people, people's motives, lies, trust & how the situation affects them is what Superstition is all about. The actual limited supernatural elements are a little hard to swallow & seem somewhat implausible in a rather forgettable twist ending. At 90 odd minutes in length if you have the patience to follow it then Superstition is a fairly engrossing & gripping drama, if your looking for supernatural horror & things that go bump in the night then forget it.Director Strong does a nice job here & the film is very stylishly shot, the film is also quite cleverly edited with several flashbacks scenes which all tie together nicely. The film has a soft look about it with muted colours, wide open locations & lots of fades rather than quick sharp cuts between scenes. Again Superstition is not an out-and-out horror fest of blood & gore, far from it in fact & I don't think there's a single drop of blood in the entire thing or a single scene which is meant to be scary. There's a definite atmosphere of unease but it doesn't try to be scary at all. I am not an expert on Italian law but why was Julie freed after being convicted of arson? I know she was acquitted of murder but the fact remains that a baby died in the fire she was convicted of starting, wouldn't that be called manslaughter which is a crime in itself? Wouldn't the judge take that into account when sentencing? Also, despite being set in Italy not one person ever speaks in Italian...Technically the film is well made with some nice stylish cinematography. The locations look nice enough although I am pretty sure it wasn't actually shot in Italy. There's some very good performances here from a good cast here including Charlotte Rampling, Alice Krige & the always watchable David Warner.Superstition is more of a courtroom drama than a supernatural horror film & you really should know that before watching it, alas I think the marketing campaign bigs up the horror elements which are obviously easier to sell than a drama. Worth a watch if you have the patience, stick with it & don't expect a full on horror film. Not to be confused with the brilliant gory horror flick Superstition (1982) about a killer witch.

Loosely based on a true story, Superstition is the tale of a British Au-Pair working in Italy, accused of using Witchcraft and Firestarting, after some fatal, fire related incidents. We then follow the story of her battle through the courts and her fight for innocence.The film has some decent acting and some quite disturbing scenes, but is largely forgettable and brings nothing new to the genre.It's OK if your desperate to see it, but if you have any doubt don't bother, it's probably not worth the effort.5/10For some decent Supernatural thrills, Try Sixth Sense, Stir of Echoes, What Lies Beneath or even Gothika, before you try this.

The only good thing about this film is the presence of well known acting legends like Charlotte Rampling and less famous actors whose average to good talents cannot rescue a rather poor script. The whole thing feels more like an afternoon TV series than a proper film. The plot is messy and inconclusive. Fires happen around the girl - we are given different suggestions on how to interpret that, but none of those are actually explored at all. Is it deliberate arson, was she acting out of jealousy, was it paranormal activity, or was she in denial? We don't know. The contradictory conclusion of the trial doesn't explain a thing either. Another thing that doesn't get any sort of proper development is the relationship between the girl and her lawyer. It seems clear a mutual attraction is developing, and the flashbacks (definitely far too many!) he is having of his deceased wife suggest he is struggling to let go of his grief and start a new life, possibly with the girl he is defending, but that's only hinted at very weakly. While Mark Strong manages to add some personality to the lawyer character, the lukewarm performance by the actress playing the girl doesn't give any real clues about her feelings for him. The hints of romance could have turned out all the better for being underplayed, but the acting is not convincing enough even for that.Finally, the inconsistencies in the plot. I don't expect a lot of realism from a story that exploits some undefined "paranormal" occurrences, but the film can't make up its mind between a pragmatic and a supernatural interpretation. Again, that ambiguity could have been a winning factor, if it had been real, purposeful ambiguity rather than flaws in the plot and character development. During the trial, a dubious expert on the paranormal is brought in to try and support a "fires start around her because she's upset" line of defense that incidentally leads nowhere. How likely is it that any court would accept that as a valid testimony? Charlotte Rampling's character, the nun who was introduced as psychiatrist (why? it's never explained), seems to have no precise role in the story either, except as improvised grief counselor for the defending lawyer. Even more glaringly inconsistent bits: in Italy a case for murder would never have a trial by jury. The most hilarious logic-defying bit has to be the shot of a double-decker red bus in the English countryside.This film is a half-baked production that can't even properly explore its main theme - the supersitions about witchcraft could have been brought in a lot more forcefully, whether to debunk them or reinforce them or leave a well-crafted ambiguity, but the script doesn't do any of that, it just starts down all of those paths at the same time without convincingly following any of them. It's a pity, because the original real story this is based on was definitely fascinating material.