''The Unspoken'' (also known as ''The Haunting of Briar House'') is a 2015 Canadian

horror Horror may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Genres *Horror fiction, a genre of fiction ** Japanese horror, Japanese horror fiction **Korean horror, Korean horror fiction * Horror film, a film genre *Horror comics, comic books focusing o ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

written and directed by Sheldon Wilson. It stars

Jodelle Ferland Jodelle Micah Ferland (born October 9, 1994) is a Canadians, Canadian actress. She debuted as a child actress at the age of four in the television film Mermaid (2000 film), ''Mermaid'' (2000) for which she won a Young Artist Award and received ...

, Neal McDonough,

Pascale Hutton Pascale Hutton (born June 14, 1979) is a Canadian actress. She was born in Creston, British Columbia. Hutton attended the conservatory acting program at the University of Alberta in Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadia ...

Sunny Suljic Sunny Suljic (; born August 10, 2005)16 is an American actor and skateboarder. He is known for his roles as Bob in Yorgos Lanthimos's 2016 drama ''The Killing of a Sacred Deer'' and as the voice and motion capture actor for Atreus, the son of Kra ...

, and Michael Rogers. ''The Unspoken'' premiered at the

Film4 FrightFest FrightFest, also known as Arrow Video FrightFest is an annual film festival held in London and Glasgow. The festival holds three major events each year: a festival running five days over the UK late August Bank Holiday weekend, a Halloween event ...

on October 24, 2015, and was released theatrically in the United States on October 28, 2016. The film received generally negative reviews.

Cast

Release

''The Unspoken'' had its world premiere at the

film festival at the Prince Charles Cinema in London, England, on October 24, 2015. The film received a theatrical release in the United States on October 28, 2016.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has an approval rating of 9% based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 3.7/10. '' Variety''s

Owen Gleiberman Owen Gleiberman (born February 24, 1959) is an American film critic who has been chief film critic for ''Variety'' magazine since May 2016, a title he shares with . Previously, Gleiberman wrote for ''Entertainment Weekly'' from 1990 until 2014. ...

described ''The Unspoken'' as a blending of "standard glossy horror tropes executed with scary ineptitude." Neil Genzlinger of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' similarly characterized the film as derivative, writing, "some of the frights work reasonably well; and Ms. Ferland is convincing. But there aren't enough surprises or innovations to make this one stand out in the sea of horror fare that comes along this time of year." Nick Allen of ''

RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times' ...

'' gave the film a score of one out of four stars, writing: "''The Unspoken'' makes apparent that it is possible to have an eye for a genre, but no vision." Justin Lowe of ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' described the film as being hampered by an "uneven script, which vacillates between horror and thriller, although it's not particularly exemplary of either genre", and wrote that the film " allsback on jump scares, assaultive music cues and poltergeist-driven SFX". The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' Noel Murray wrote that the film "has so much plot that it really shouldn't need to rely as much as it does on big, loud sounds", concluding, "This movie's about as scary as a jackhammer."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Unspoken, The 2010s English-language films 2015 films 2015 horror thriller films Canadian horror films Canadian horror thriller films Canadian haunted house films