Content
The story of The Haunted Heart is a natural love story between
a writer named John and a writer named Kate…with a
supernatural twist.
John
is a non-fiction writer that sells public interest stories
to a local paper as he tries to save money to go to Europe
where he will pursue his life-long dream of proving that
supernatural entities really exist. As a child he saw a
ghost-like entity in his room and has been fascinated by
them ever since. When he has the money, he intends to move
into an ancient castle that is thought to be haunted in
order to conduct realistic tests and experiments.
Kate
is a hypothetical fiction author that looks at spiritual
concerns, with her first novel wondering if God would forgive
Satan if he were truly repentant at the end of time. When
she's not writing, she's part of a protection agency that
is trying to restore an old tower that is slowly crumbling
in disuse and which is slated for wrecking in a short period
of time.
The
two cross paths when John decides that the tower story would
make a great public interest and decides to interview a
member of the preservation group. Kate is either the only
member of the group or the only one who is available (either
conclusion is supported by the flow of the film!), so he
interviews her.
Once
they meet, they feel an instant chemistry both as a man
and a woman and as a non-fiction writer and a fiction writer.
(Sort of a dual yin-yang attraction, if you will!) What
starts out as a simple piece slowly grows into a relationship
until, after a few somewhat clichéd career confusions,
he pops the question. (It should be noted that, while there
were a few romance movie clichés in this film, there
were virtually no horror movie clichés, which tends
to be a more difficult feat to accomplish in a supernatural
mystery.)
Kate,
of course, says yes, at which time John reveals that he's
saved the old tower from the wrecking ball by buying it
so that they could move in and live there. As she loves
the old tower, she is thrilled.
That
is, until they move in and start to find supernatural occurrences
that cannot be explained in any form of scientific understanding.
It is at this point that Mr. Moretti's use of juxtaposition
becomes quite effective: the non-fiction author is fascinated
by the supernatural and documents it in depth, whereas the
fiction author is repulsed by the unknown and longs to make
the things in her house fall under scientific explanations.
One begins to suspect that perhaps Mr. Moretti is a big
X-Files fan, as the two characters start to resemble a married
version of Mulder and Scully.
While
the writing in this movie is actually quite strong, the
film does suffer from some acting and editing issues, especially
in the beginning.
This
was a first movie for everyone, so it's not all that unusual
that this is the case. The reason editing is mentioned in
the content rather than the visual look section is because
it related to confusion in the beginning. Some of the editing
seemed to break the 180 degree rule and also added unneeded
awkwardness to the initial scenes between John and Kate.
Part of this is due to the fact that some of the shooting
and editing styles chosen earlier in the film use abrupt
close-ups of things to establish a sense of confusion or
tension, which takes some getting used to. However, this
doesn't explain why the primary problems with the editing
came during some of the early conversations between Kate
and John other than simply through being new to the editing
suite. (As Premiere Pro has a pretty hefty learning curve,
I would guess that this is probably the case.)
