A young nurse named Verena goes to stay with a widower and his son in order to help the boy through his grief after losing his mother. She soon learns of the belief that the voices of the dead can be heard through the stone structure in the house they live in and around the house. Thinking it’s all make believe, Verena gradually begins to second guess everything as the voices begin to speak to her.
One thing to mention about this movie is that it’s not a horror movie. At least not the one it tries to make us think it is. Instead this plays out more like psychological drama/thriller. In some instances it draws elements of The Shining, The Skeleton Key, elements of The Yellow Wallpaper, and places it in this gothic romantic setting. And for the most part it works. In the last 20 minutes that is. Everything prior to this is slow and boring to the point where I couldn’t even keep focused. The gothic and moody atmosphere is great at least to give us something nice to look at. Besides of course he lovely Emilia Clarke as the lead. Those last twenty minutes are definitely the best part of the movie and I suppose does make it worth the suffering of everything prior. However, it doesn’t really have much of a build up towards it. It’s has a decent twist, but it sort of interrupts the flow of the fact that we’re watching this woman’s mentality disintegrate the more she begins to believe in these voices. This aspect would have been better instead of the final twist thrown in. Had there been more of this sprinkled throughout a majority of the film as opposed to Verena wandering the ground and following Jakob around like a dog, it would have made the pay-off even better. Emilia Clarke is also a positive about the film. At the start she portrays Verena as a pretty uptight but caring person. But Clarke’s performance really takes off when she has to portray the character slowing losing her sanity. I personally hope we get to see her branch out more once Game of Thrones is done, because she really is a great actress and pretty expressive when the roles calls for it.
Voice From the Stone’s biggest flaw is the fact that everything prior to the final act is so boring and doesn’t serve much purpose in how it’s structured. In fact until the end I almost felt disbelief that this was supposed to be a horror film. The general idea is good, but getting there is tiresome, even if it’s very-well filmed and has the talents of Clarke to guide it.
–Cody Landman
