Horror film fans who are expecting gratuitous violence, blood and guts are not going to enjoy this film. It's more melancholic and nostalgic than scary, it's quite a long and quiet film, it has no on-screen murder or death and it features religion in a bad light. Now, if you're an unabashed pretentious hipster with an affinity for art, Canadian filmmaking and Gothic revival scenery like I am, you'll absolutely go crazy about this one.Aaron Poole plays a grieving son who never really felt much admiration for his mother (played with chilling elegance by Vanessa Redgrave), as she traumatized him throughout his childhood unintentionally with a strict religious upbringing. Much of the film is taken up by the exploration of the Leigh Estate, and the work that went into this is absolutely to die for, from the beautiful rainbow stained glass to the vintage Catholic memorabilia. The director is meticulous in his work and leaves no corner or shadow without something eerie residing there. The Leigh Estate itself is stunning (is it a real house? I want to see it in person!), but it's not at the heart of this film. It becomes revealed that Rosalind's devout religion drove her further from her son rather than bonding them closer. Out of loneliness and isolation she commits suicide. We get brief glimpses into her past, which could be interpreted in numerous ways; ultimately it seems to be that Rosalind and her late husband became involved in a peculiar cult run by the quite creepy Rahn Brothers (both played by Julian Richings, my favourite actor! He was 'Death' on Supernatural and Yuri in Patch Town). The Rahn Brothers appear to have possibly been involved with the husband's death on a bridge although this is never clarified much further. Tension begins to build in subtle ways as it goes along, but it's the psychological sadness in the story that resounds a lot longer than the "horror" does.This film is quite odd and not for everyone; some viewers are going to find it terribly boring and others will appreciate the effort put into it. Either way it's not just a film, but also a puzzle. It's the tiny artistic details that really make it shine. The mirror effect with the Rahn Brothers to create a visual of two people instead of one is very impressive, as is the collection of many angel statues and figurines that were gathered before filming took place. The soundtrack wasn't memorable but it was enjoyable anyway. Personally it all had me thinking back to films like 'Don't Look Now' (1973) and 'Alice Sweet Alice' (1976). Real issues lie beneath the fiction, in this case the suggestion that we should not force our beliefs onto our own children, and that grief is not an illness or something to hide from, but rather a connection to the dearly departed. Maybe I just miss that classic style of horror from before the era of cheap slasher pictures and found-footage, but I fell in love with this story and its presentation completely, and it's definitely something that I would watch again, especially in case I missed any small details. The filmmakers have a habit of hiding tiny things within scenes and creating something elaborately decadent and mysterious.

This is a very well-made, slow-burn horror/ghost story movie, but it helps to know what you're getting into. The director, Rodrigo Gudino, made his name with a very creepy six- minute short film called "The Facts in the Case of Mr. Hollow." I strongly recommend watching it here first to decide whether or not "Last Testament" is your bag:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzw8qdXCep8Watched it? Great. You'll notice it was a single-take moving shot of a still photograph, in which more and more information gets revealed and in which inanimate objects take on a horrifying creepiness, sometimes through sheer force of will of the filmmaker. "Last Will" uses similar techniques *a lot.* If you liked "Facts," you'll like the feature. If not, you almost certainly won't.There are large portions of this film that are just tracking shots over tableaux with the late Rosalind Leigh's (Vanessa Redgrave) narration, which is a great conceit for how the dead remember things. There are a few choice scares, and the movie's definitely trying to say something about grief and how we grieve for people we had complicated relationships with. But it's a very unusual film (Aaron Poole is the only actor we see, live, on screen; everyone else is either a voice on a phone or an unseen figure in a doorway or recorded on tape) with an ending that's only semi-satisfying. Your enjoyment of it depends on whether you're interested in a film that takes a lot of risks, knowing that it succeeds at a majority of the time, but not all of it. Me? I loved it, but I totally get why others don't.

Heh... I am not at all surprised that this film has such polarized reviews. As you can likely tell by many of the Summaries, people either think it is very good or hate it. The reason being is VERY simple. Whenever you have a very low key 'Horror' film or especially a Ghost Story, unless you are the kind of person who really specifically enjoys these kinds of movies, you are just gonna sit there and think 'What crap!' and be totally bored. Thus the 1 and 2 star reviews that you see here...I've pretty much given up on people realizing that when they come here to dump all over a specific kind of film that they would NEVER like anyway, it is of absolutely NO help to others who may be looking for this type of film and want to know if it is a good one. It's like if you hate old-style, Classic B-Westerns, and you come here and review a film like that and then say how awful, corny, and stupid it is. How helpful is that to other people who happen to LIKE old B-Westerns. Not terribly much... But, people just do not seem to get that.Anyway, sorry to digress a bit, but I really wish people wouldn't waste all our time and do that. The story and pacing is SLOW... It is ALL about mood and atmosphere with a good layer of Psychological overtones. Also, it is nominally a Ghost Story, which either you like them or your don't. And, it is a SLOW, moody Ghost Story with VERY little in the way of violence or quick-edits or any overt or graphic imagery. So, if you are on of these people who love films like 'HOSTEL' or 'SAW' or 'THE MARTYRS' or 'HAUTE TENSION', you probably will get almost nothing from this movie at all. Again, precisely the reason for many of the poor reviews that you see here.As I mentioned, a lot of this film is Psychological, mainly because you are pretty much experiencing it from the point of view of the one guy who has come back to his old home where he was raised. One thing that I really did like was the set decoration, the imagery and the cinematography and lighting. It was very effective in creating the mood of the story. Also, I really liked the soundtrack; although the story and overall mood were very low-key, the soundtrack itself reminded me of some of the more adventurous Horror film soundtracks that I really liked that were more common in Horror films about 40 years ago. It is a nice counterpoint to the slow mood of the rest of the film and can build quite a nice crescendo of suspense in a couple of scenes.There is a lot of religious imagery, which along with the look of the rest of the film was pretty creepy and effective in adding to the mood. The story is deliberately vague so that the audience doesn't REALLY know quite what is going on. The voice-over narration of the mother who has died and what is revealed about the way he was raised adds to the texture of the story, such as it is. Not to be too specific, but the end was rather mystifying and I cannot honestly say that it was clear to me as to what it meant. But, the way it was done still packed a nice little punch at the end of the film.Basically as you can likely tell by now, this is NOT your usual modern-day, MTV-induced, shaky-cam, found-footage Horror film. It is very much a throwback to Classic Ghost stories, and very low-key ones at that. So, if you have no real interest in those types of films, then you probably won't care for this one. BUT... if you DO have an appreciation for slow, ambiguous, Psychological, and very moody Horror films, then yes, like me, you probably will will find it intriguing and entertaining.

When I had just finished watching this film, last night, I needed to punch the writer in the face. For real.Clive Barker called this film 'Unique'? Really? Well I guess it is a completely new way to disappoint an audience.This is a style of writing I classify as 'Eggs In One Basket' - you are completely pivoting the entire plot on one thing impressing your viewers. Fail that, and the entire thing fails. And it did.I can see what the author was trying to do, and this is what I mean by 'redeeming features' - so much implied stuff, forcing your imagination to do the scare. That was rather nice, and very creepy.But they got something wrong, oh so wrong:They gave expectations.Expectations that were never delivered upon. Up comes the final scene and ...I'm writing this the next day now, which I made myself do - I needed to calm down. As I say, I badly wanted to punch somebody, the author being the most logical choice.Now that I've gained some perspective, and got over the bitter, stinging disappointment the film ultimately delivers, I can see some merit in it.But not much.3/10, up from 1/10.Now don't do it again!