The Eclipse (2009) poster
2009 · drama · horror · supernatural

The Eclipse

Directed by Conor McPherson1h 28m2009
ElsewhereIMDb6.03kRT77%Metacritic67
  • heavy
  • measured
Movie DNA

Heavy, measured, measured drama / horror, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Michael is a widower who is struggling to adjust to his new role as the sole caretaker of his two children. Still reeling from the death of his wife, he has been plagued by terrifying apparitions. When he volunteers at a local literary festival, he finds himself drawn to Lena, an empathetic author of supernatural fiction. While Lena tries to help Michael with the mystery of his nightmarish visions, she must contend with problems of her own, as she’s being jealously pursued by self-obsessed novelist Nicholas, her one-time lover. As the festival progresses, the three adults’ lives converge and collide.

Our read · The Eclipse (2009) reads as a heavy, measured, grounded drama · horror · supernatural entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

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The shape of The Eclipse

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a moody Irish ghost story about grief, widowerhood, and literary festival connection.

ends unsettlingit stays with youa slow buildgrips by minute 18attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upsuicide theme

Skip it tonightYou want jump scares or fast-moving conventional horror.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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