The Inside Story

Dean is visiting his uncle Edward (Charles 'Bud' Tingwell from "Innocence"), who has lived in the same house all his life. In fact, Edward's grandfather disappeared at the house years ago and was never seen again.

Dean is strangely drawn to the cellar where he finds a trunk. Locked inside is a book which seems to have all of history recorded in it. Scarier still, as things happen, they appear magically in the book, as if someone is writing it as the events unfold. It might sound like I have given too much away, but there are many more surprises after that.

I'm not a normally a fan of thrillers, so I was scared at times but many people probably would not be. The acting was only adequate, but I thought the story was extremely good and surprising. In fact, the writer (Robert Sutherland, who also directed) won the "Awgie" from the Australian Writer's Guild for best feature film screenplay.

Seen on 11/5/2002 at the 2002 Hawaii International Film Festival, where an earlier showing was the U.S. premiere. The executive producer (Robert A. Jones) was there to answer a few questions: The cost was about $2.5 million, the music is all original, it was filmed in Melbourne, and it does *not* have distribution yet. He also said that he found out that an executive producer's primary job is to write checks.

I think this film would be reasonably successful in general release. It's interesting, looks like it cost a lot more to make than it actually did, and I simply enjoyed it.