The Gathering
(2002)
review by Don't Feed the Dead

I was priveleged enough to catch this movie after the initial shoot as part of a "study" and I must say even though I went just to see Christina Ricci (Vixen!), the movie turned out to be quite enjoyable.

The story entails a young girl (Ricci) wandering the countryside of England aimlessly only to be plastered by a car occupied by a mommy and her two kids. The woman takes Ricci back to her house to recoup, all the while her husband is sent on an archiological dig where a certain "discovery" is made by some kids falling through a hole in a hill during a rave. When Ricci comes to she has no idea of who she is, why she's in England or how she got there. Ricci also begins to have visions concerning the children of the house as well as some odd characters she sees floating around the local area. Coincidentally, the more the husband learns of the discovery that was made, the more frequent Ricci's visions become.

The husband does some more digging around the history of the discovery and learns that it was a shrine built to signify a gathering of people that witnessed the death of Christ. As more is learned about the gathering Ricci begins to recall more about her past. Now I'm not gonna spoil the movie for y'all, but I will tell you that this movie has a plot that rivals the execution of the 6th Sense. I thoroughly enjoyed the rough cut editing (although that will be prettied up for the final copy release) and felt that it gave a sense of truth to the whole storyline. The movie does an excellent job of hiding the story until the end and the execution of Ricci's flashbacks carry impeccable timing. I sat in the theater often thinking to myself, "oh this is gonna happen", but I couldn't predict a damn sequence if my middle name was Miss Cleo.

Take it from someone that is mainly into hack and slash movies, if there is one suspense/ thriller that I dub a "must see" it's gotta be the Gathering. In my opinion it shattered Unbreakable and blew away the 6th Sense. Hopefully the editing machine didn't eat up all the important parts that helped execute the storyline and kept people wondering.