Bella Thorne, Richard Harmon, Amy-Price Francis, Shaun Benson, Thomas Elms, Sara Thompson, Louis Herthum, and Mermot Rondunny, um Motderm Delraimi, um Fertig von Domnrom, um Mermit Ex Vosdox, oh Dermot Mulroney!
More details here.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
THE ANGLE:
Ten years after a massive explosion at Hadron Collider-type government facility, ghosts are commonplace, appearing at regular intervals mimicking behavior from their former lives like holograms stuck in a looped recording.
The apparitions are called remnants or "rems" and are now studied as a primary subject in schools. High schooler Veronica (Thorne) lost her father in the incident. Veronica has grown understandably sad, despondent, and dark since the loss of her father and his ghostie appearing at breakfast every morning doesn't help her mourn.
We learn that as scientists struggle to explain their existence, the rems do not interact with the real world and simply appear and disappear for no known reason. So Veronica is especially alarmed when one morning, a rem appears in the shower with her and tries to communicate.
But this is no ordinary spooky sexy rendezvous in the can. The menacing rem is behaving weirdly and lunges for her. Terrorized, Veronica seeks the advice of her teacher Mr. Bittner (Mulroney) who is not helpful as he indelicately explains that what she's experiencing is impossible.
So Veronica seeks out the school's official creepy guy and resident rem expert Kirk (Harmon) to help, and of course they fall in awkward gothy love and stuff.
As the pair Scooby-Doo their way through increasingly dangerous interactions with the rem and evidence that its behavior is part of a wider conspiracy involving the accident that started this whole thing, a presumed rem-caused body count starts to rise.
Veronica and Kirk discover that the rem might not be as menacing as previously thought and their investigation turns to a more alive type of killer with sinister intentions beyond their understanding. They discover that the rem is being manipulated to transfer another rem's spirit into a living person to bring that person back to life in a process called "spectral transference". All the wacky paranormal science talks leads to a final confrontation, a lot of head-scratching...
...and a very soggy Dermot.
THE FINISHER:
I Still See You, a perfectly fine soft-PG ghost movie, is based on the 2013 book Break My Heart a 1,000 Times, another perfectly fine Young Adult novel. Directed by Scott Speer, a former music video director and producer of the Step-Up movies, with screenplay by Jason Fuchs, who worked on Wonder Woman, the movie is a completely fine paranormal romance that you can knock out in 90 OK-ish minutes. Former Disney star, now porn director, and lead Thorne is super competent and present for her role as a mourning goth girl turned otherworldly target. Gaunt and creepy Harmon, who looks destined for an X-men role as a morlock (that’s a compliment), is also totally decent and satisfactory as the sullen romantic interest. Mulroney, who I haven’t seen in anything for a while, is sending out RDJ-like vibes in his capable performance as the cool teacher who knows what Snapchat is and may not be what he seems. But the real star is the fantastic premise in which ghosts are real, are ordinary, and are trying to affect reality. The idea is never truly fleshed out in the movie which forsakes an exploration of this world to tell a romantic whodunit that in the end had major implications for the world it's trying to build. And that's totally fine. I don't know how popular the book was, but it's evident by the last scene the producers have intentions to franchise with future installments. The original novel was released by a publishing wing of Disney, so I wouldn't put past them. I could see this work in a CW series as the movie mish-mashes hints of Riverdale, Stranger Things, and Twilight and could cash in on those still viable YA dollars.
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