"How do you know your memories are real?" After finally leaving her abusive husband, Anna (Repace) and her eight year old son are taken to a secret apartment where he won't be able to find them. In order to help her sleep at night she buys a baby monitor to help her know what's going on in her son's room. One night she is awoken by the sounds of screaming coming from the monitor, but the sounds aren't from her son's room. She is left to wonder if it's her imagination or if the horror she is hearing is real. I was looking forward to this one for two reasons. It looked pretty creepy and I am becoming a fan of Rapace. Based off my expectations I have to say that I was a little disappointed. The movie was OK, but like most foreign movies it tends to drag quite a bit. The movie is very disturbing and really deals with child abuse in a way that most American movies tend to shy away from. I'm not trying to talk you out of watching this but just be prepared that the movie is pretty slow and shows child abuse in a very disturbing fashion. The entire movie does keep you guessing and on edge wondering what is real and what isn't. The ending does make you re-think about everything you saw and catches you by surprise. Overall, disturbing but OK. If you think you can handle it then watch it but nothing to rush out and see. I give it a C+.

Baby Call – The Monitor – TRASH IT (C+) Baby Call is a Swedish movie about a young woman escaping from her abusive husband with her 8 year old son. Terrified that her ex-husband will find them she buys a baby monitor to keep in her son's room at all times. But strange noises echo in the baby monitor from elsewhere in the building. As she witnesses the sounds of what she believes is another child being murdered she fears it is her own. Reliving the nightmare she recently escaped Anna will need to figure out what's real and what isn't before she loses her sanity and her child. (IMDB) The premises of the movie is typical and perfect for horror movie but sadly the terrible and usual ending made the whole movie like a Big Cheat sold on the name of Noomi Rapace. The only reason movie is getting C+ is because of great performance by Noomi Rapace as She was incredible as the scared young woman terrified for her son's life. Kristoffer Joner was great as lonesome sales person. Overall, it's disappointing. I wished it had better story or at least better ending.

I saw this film at the Glasgow film festival today. Both screenings were sold out. Anna moves with the 8 year old son into a shabby apartment, having escaped from a violent husband. She is scared that he might find them but also scared of herself because she knows that she blends her troubled memory with the present. The film feels like a mix of "Dead Man's Shoes" and "Martha Marcy May Marlene". The former also has an "imaginary" brother whereas the latter deals with memory and present. While in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" the transition between imagination and present worked effortlessly, in Babycall it felt like a cheat to me. It felt just as a device to keep me confused right up to the end. Mainly because it's just filmed in a very plain way like in "Dead Man's shoes". I wish they had more visual ideas, for example in "Let's talk about Kevin" or in "Martha...". The ending I found pretty disappointing because it's basically the typical art-house dramatic curve -- namely going downhill. Death is always the easy way out whereas an open ending with two troubled people would have worked better.

Anna moves into hiding in a shabby flat in an apartment building outside Oslo, with her young son Anders. She is a profoundly neurotic, young woman: terrified that the boy's violent father will find them again and attack her son.Having been instructed by social services that Anders should sleep in his own room, she buys a baby-monitor from a local shop, in order that she can hear him sleep. However she starts picking up the sounds of violence from a nearby flat.Unable to tell the difference between her psychosis induced world and reality, she seeks help from Helge, the shy sales assistant who sold her the monitor.Just because she's paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get her.. but it does make it difficult to piece together the story, told mostly from her desperately disturbed perspective.This film won the Grand Prize at the Gerardmer Film Festival in France: it is really worth a look.