Customer Reviews

Hurt

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This suspense drama immediately puts itself a cut above the average by being set in an auto junkyard. While most psychological thrillers set their struggling young families either in impossibly luxurious, spacious homes - or else in old isolated farmhouses that the family moves to in order to "get a new start" - "Hurt" takes a different tack. Here a newly widowed mother and her children go back and join her brother-in-law in his ramshackle auto salvage business out on the desert.

This makes for a complex, realistic setting with lots of sharp edges and shadows. There is also a pack of wolves prowling the property, adding an extra fillip of menace.

It becomes clear that not all the gears in this reconstructed family are meshing quite right. The brother-in-law broodingly takes refuge in restoring a Ford Fairlane in one of the sheds on the property. The young son takes refuge in welding old car parts together into works of modern art. The mother adds to this already unwieldy assemblage when she abides by her dead husband's wishes and brings home a young foster child, well-played by Sofia Vassilieva (who is known for her role as a daughter in the TV series "Medium"). While an undertow of tension swells in the family at large, Vassilieva blithely jumps rope across the dusty yard, a picture of eerie innocence.

Anyone who likes searching through junkyards for parts - anyone who's into old car restoration - anyone who likes family dramas set in atmospheres of moodiness that devolve into murder - will probably find this movie worthwhile.

"Hurt" reminds me of the Lifetime Movie Network's movies with its predictable plot twists, less than credible acting, and melodramatic scenes. It stars Melora Walters (Wanda in Big Love) as a widow who finds herself facing financial difficulties after the untimely death of her husband. With two teenagers to support, she is forced to rely on the charity of her brother-in-law, a reclusive character who reluctantly takes the family in. Despite living on someone else's charity, the widow decides to abide by her dead husband's wishes to take in a foster child, an orphan (Sofia Vassilieva of Medium)who seems harmless enough, yet also harbors a dark secret. The widow's teenage daughter who is finding it hard to deal with their diminished circumstances, takes an instant dislike to the young orphan, and when things start to rapidly deteriorate, she begins to suspect all is not well with the youngster.

There are some aspects in this movie that don't make much sense - the widow is annoying in her helplessness. Yes, she has type 1 diabetes, but that doesn't mean she can't be productive - there appears to be no real sense of purpose in her life, wallowing in self-pity, and her efforts to find a job appear half-hearted at most. The same goes for the two teenage kids - they keep whining about not having money and having to put up with their creepy uncle, but neither of them (it being summer) attempt to find a job. The only creepy factor in this movie is the character of the orphan who after a while, appears to harbor a dark agenda of her own (in a twist which I actually figured out quite early on). "Hurt" is a been-there done that sort of psychological thriller (not horror) and worth a rental at best.

Hurt is a terror-inducing movie about a newly widowed single mother Helen Coltrane (played by Melora Walters of "Big Love"), her teenage son (Jackson Rathbone of "Twilight") and daughter, seeking aid from her hermit-like, gun-toting brother-in-law. As they struggle to come to grips with the drastic changes in their life, they cross paths with a foster child who claims that Helen's late husband pledged to take her in. They do so... with dire consequences as one by one lies, illusions, and darkness unravel. A gripping and eerie saga to the very end, especially recommended for fans of tense psychological thrillers. 97 minutes, rated R.

Very dark and suspenseful. Great acting and a good script. It's all around a well made film.

Hurt is one of those horror films that takes a while to get going but once it does, it's worth your time. It's worth sitting through the generic character interactions that take place in the beginning. Though truth be told, it's not as generic as other films.

This is because the storyline is about a demented foster girl that this family adopted, and they live in the middle of the desert with nobody else around. When the storyline finally gets going, the movie leaves viewers guessing whether the girl is causing the assortment of problems or maybe there's a lunatic out there on the loose. It's actually fairly well-written in the "Who's causing the problems?" department. My only grip is that there was one line where the demented girl was sitting in her bedroom and gave it ALL away. That line should have been removed.

At first the problems are minor and insignificant- a bird is lying dead on the kitchen table and the family points the blame at each other. Then eventually, people begin to die.

Because so much storyline is devoted to the build-up between the family and the foster girl, you will definitely learn more about the story as it unfolds. Actually a key piece to the storyline is executed brilliantly by the movies conclusion involving how the foster girls parents were killed, and it's surprising how well-written and compelling it is.

What I find totally makes this movie a winner is the final 30 minutes. Not only are the deaths interesting and creative, but the foster girl totally nails her role and actually improves her acting skills by quite a bit once we get closer to the end.

Overall, worth watching.

Yes, it's another movie about an adopted child (that no one wants for a good reason) who turns out to be a bit of a handful. The structure of the story is a bit different in that we have a displaced partial family temporarily staying with an Uncle in his wrecking yard in a desert that is just the right distance from civilization for strange things to happen. So the family tries to pull itself together without the father who had died earlier they also bring in an adoptee who acts as a provocateur in exposing each individual's issues. As the movie progresses you develop the sense that if anyone dies - who cares.

The acting by Sofia Vassilieva (the adopted little monster of course) stood out and seemed to carry the suspense as she played people against each other.
As far as the rest of the movie their was nothing special about the directing, editing, filming or script - not great, not bad. However, there were two problems: First, it's another of those movies where you wonder how the script writers and director ever make it through life if the dumb choices of the movie's actors is any reflection upon them. Second, the final 15 minutes or so was like watching a cliff diver's sterling entrance only to end up doing a belly flop at the end. Just a total disaster of an ending - a belly flop. It's as if the creativity was depleted by the time the finale approached, or they were running out of money.

the blurb on the cover made this sound scary - but it turned out to be such a low-key thriller that i may not need to take my high blood pressure pills this weekend

the story moves as fast as a sand dune - character studies were the order of the day - and i was engrossed - these people's interactions were intriguing - and the acting was pretty good

the two suspicious ones were played by the only two actors i recognized - the brother was played by the crooked nosed William Mapother of LOST - and the new foster child was played by MEDIUM's older sister Sofia Vassilieva - the latter was the most impressive of the group of actors

i predicted just about all the plot twists - but in this case - it made the film fun for me

This is a very good generic type of thriller. It is not as good as Shutter Island or even The Uninvited, but is still worth a look if you are into thrillers. A man dies in an automobile accident. His wife, son and daughter go and live with dad's brother, in a desert "auto recycling facility" known as a junk yard. This is just temporary until the settlement check comes through... Mom is diabetic and has issues with her husband's death. The brother-in-law is a bit creepy and is in love with his dead brother's wife. The kids are somewhat normal, whatever that is for teenagers. Before he died, dad made arrangements to take in a child from an abused home. Mom, after meeting the child, agrees to continue with the foster care. The teenage girl has an instant dislike for the new girl, Sara, and Sara has an instant liking for the brother. There is the expected twist to the story, in fact it is hard to call it a twist, and there is also an unexpected twist, for which there were clues laid out. The acting was good, plot and dialogue were also sound. No nudity, no real sex, and the F-bomb gets dropped a few times, most likely done to ensure an "R" rating as the swearing seemed a bit out of place.

was an awesome movie Jackson was really hot in it an played a good part,a good suspence thriller,worth watching again,it will catch you off guard

Ok, I bought this dvd without reading much of what it was about but because it was cheaper to buy with another dvd that I had been wanting to see for awhile, and me trying to be thrifty, I saw the tag "horror" and said what the heck. Well...

It certainly wasn't the worst movie ever, but I'd definitely say it isn't worth purchasing. The acting was superb, however, save one...the little girl ended up getting a bit hammy toward the end.

The film wasn't very original and had little to no plot-twists, or at least none that I didn't see coming about 3 scenes ahead of their actual revelation. The scene that disturbed me the most was when the brother (played by Jackson Rathbone) gets smashed by a large metal sculpture thingie...his sister comes to discover him still alive underneath the hulking thing and doesn't even make one attempt to free him but instead runs off to find her mom and battle it out with the weird little girl first, leaving poor Conrad to suffer with his crushed pelvis or whatever injury he might've had...that definitely disturbed me more than anything else in the movie. I would've at least TRIED to free my brother, whether it be in vain or not. Other than that, this movie was so tame and uneventful that I watched it with my children and never once had them cover their eyes. They are ages 6 and 7, if that tells you anything. And my 13 year-old niece thought it was a "really good movie."

In short, if you are over the age of 16 and have become desensitized by ultra violent and scary horror films throughtout the years, this movie is not for you. But the acting was good...