For Sale by Owner

"For Sale By Owner" is a haunting thriller--from which you assume, trained by recent movies, that it is filled with nerve wreaking tension, eerie flash-backs and extremely disturbing character study. For those who expect episodic, gory, blood and guts ride, this is not your type of movie. On the contrary, it is a clever story in which an atmosphere of dread slowly envelops the characters--too slowly at times.

The film takes place in a house in small-town USA called Emeryville. In this house lives Sera (Amanda Brown) with her husband, Mr. Growstosky. To the house one day, on a stormy afternoon, comes a real-estate agent named Andrew Byrd (John Lansch), who is responding to Mr. Growstosky's call for putting the house for sale on the market.

Caught in the storm of the century and waiting for his ride, Sera reluctantly allows Andrew inside the house. At the same time, a serial killer is on a rampage, killing random victims and marking his kill by carving a number 13 on their chests.

During the course of their conversation, we find out that Andrew is an extremely temperamental person fighting a nasty child custody battle. His personality changes after a few drinks. Sera soon realizes that Andrew does to plan to leave and her life might be in jeopardy.

Just when things begin to take turn for the worst, John Denton (Marc H) shows up at the door in a form of Messiah. Just when Sera starts feeling a bit secured, we learn that John is carrying religious baggage.

The movie's events are such that I must not describe them. Even a hint might give away the game. Of course they are elusive and mysterious, explained first one way and then another.

The director has the patience to create a languorous, suspense filled atmosphere, and Amanda Brown succeeds in convincing me that she is a normal person in a disturbing situation and not just a standard-issue horror movie hysteric. The writing, although not superlative, had me glued to the screen wanting to watch as the drama unfolded.

On a dark and stormy night, with a serial killer on the loose, Sera (Amanda Brown) invites two strangers in, either of whom could be a serial killer.

Amanda Brown makes an unlikely protagonist. She is not particularly likable in this role, but does a fine job of being vulnerable. And maybe that is the important part: knowing that if the man in her house is a serial killer, she probably stands no chance against him.

This film strikes me as being like Larry Cohen's "Pick Me Up", but with a mysterious twist. In "Pick Me Up", we have a woman surrounded by two serial killers. Here, we have a woman with two strangers in her house -- but we have no idea if they are both killers, one of them is a killer, or maybe neither of them are. Both are creepy, but what does that mean?

The film is slow, and very little happens... but it is somewhat interesting and I am tempted to bump up my rating of it a little bit. But, sadly, it is just not quite worthy.

We were given this film by mistake at the DVD rental shop (under the name 'th13teen' -- we actually wanted the Holly Hunter movie about teenage sex/drug/crime).

This is basically like a student movie. The dialog is stilted and unrealistic, the production values are bordering on non-existent, the music is over-the-top and poorly done, the story makes very little sense and it's all a rather surreal experience in B-movie badness.

It's the kind of film that might be worth watching at 3am on a Sunday morning if you were drunk/stoned and there was nothing else on. Certainly don't bother paying money to see this trash!

In Emeryville, the dwellers are scared with the serial killer that craves the number thirteen on his victims. During a stormy afternoon, the school counselor Sarah (Amanda Brown) allows the insistent real-state agent Andrew Byrd (John Lansch) to stay inside her house while waiting for his ride. Andrew is disputing the custody of his daughter Samara and shows an unbalanced man while having a conversation with Sarah. When the security system agent John Denton (Marc Hustvedt) arrives in the house for maintenance of the alarm system, Sarah feels secure. However, when a mark with 13 is found in one room, Sarah realizes that she is in danger.

"For Sale by Owner" is a theatrical and tense thriller and shows characters in the edge in the thin line between sanity and insanity. The story is developed in a slow-pace and probably that is the reason of the low IMDb User Rating. However the acting is good and despite the last confused twist, I liked this little movie. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa do Pânico" ("The House of the Panic")

For Sale By Owner (USA movie), in my opinion, is a very solid thriller, very original in terms of plot, slow-paced but never boring. The storyline was wonderful, and this is something that could happen to people. It kept me on the edge of my couch wanting, sometimes begging to know what comes next.

The movie's wonderful and unexpected twist was a surprise for me and it's done so cleverly that you'll want to revisit the film to see just how the trickery was managed.

All three characters (Sera, John and Andrew), although extremely dark, appear genuine real life characters that lend a physiological element genre making it entertaining to watch.

For Sale By Owner is a spine tingling,frightening thriller that I really enjoyed.!