Set in Singapore and touted as Singapore’s first Hollywood horror movie, The Faith of Anna Waters begins with Jamie Waters (Elizabeth Rice), an award-winning crime reporter leaving Chicago for Singapore to investigate the strange death of her sister, Anna. In another thread, Catholic priests Matthew Tan (Adrian Pang) and James De Silva (Colin Borgonon) begin seeing signs of the apocalypse in the forms of internet attacks on churches’ websites around the world. Together with Anna’s husband Sam (Matthew Settle) and daughter Katie (Adina Herz), Jamie goes around the island-state in a bid to solve the mystery of her sister death, mainly in an old bungalow where Anna and Katie used to live.
The movie is the latest work of Singaporean filmmaker Kelvin Tong and I had high expectations of it. It started off on a good note with plenty of potential but as the movie went along, I felt that there was a lack of focus. The many accompanying stories happening simultaneously – the Tower of Babel reference and the backstory of the bungalow, for instance – took away from what could have been a singular but forceful main plot.
I really liked the cinematography (from what little I know about it). Apart from the scary/about-to-get-scary scenes, I really enjoyed the aerial shots that let us see Singapore’s beauty from different vantage points. The choice of a dull, slightly desaturated and washed-out colour grading really adds to the whole ambience of the movie.
The visual effects by Vividthree Productions are some of the bests I have ever seen in a Singapore production, while the original music by Joe Ng and Ting Si Hao added just the right amount of chills. There were some scenes (okay maybe quite a few) where I was literally melting into the cinema seat, my right hand over my eyes, torn between wanting to know the truth and being scared to see the horror unfold.
The linguistic student in me got a little excited when I realised that the Tower of Babel was incorporated into the plot near the beginning of the movie, only to be slightly let down later when the reference wasn’t really explored in detail. It was inevitable though, considering the overzealous narratives which were a little ambitious for the 95 minutes duration of the film. I would totally have sat in for 30 more minutes for a more in-depth exploration of the story.
There’s only one way to find out what’s the Tower of Babel got to do with a horror movie set in Singapore: go get a good scare this weekend and support Singapore production.
The Faith of Anna Waters is now showing in cinemas islandwide.
