Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Totem’

Written by Scott Edwards

​The thought of being replaced at work is not a good one and when it infects your mind it will hover over you like a dark cloud. Getting distracted from your job is the one thing that you do not want to have happen, but more often than not it does, and you start to suffer. While you think that you are doing the best that you can under the circumstances, thought alone will not be good enough to keep you from spiraling down the drain. What is sad, is that the same logic can be applied to life as well and while it seems like everything is going all right, pretending might not be enough to keep everyone as happy as they have become accustomed to.
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Five years have passed, and James is looking to make a big change in his life as he has invited his girlfriend Robin to move into his family’s home. While his youngest daughter Abby is open to the idea, the older daughter Kellie does not want to have any of it. Trying to convince her father otherwise, Kellie does not hide the fact that she likes the house as it is after her mother died. Taking note of this, James will not be detoured from moving on with his life and a fresh start is exactly what the family is in need of.

Watching as her father is packing up all of the pictures of their mom, Abby has something new that she is not sharing with anybody, an invisible friend. With giggles all around, Abby believes that she is talking to her deceased mother as Robin makes her way into the home. Trying to keep her little sister from pursuing this friendship with someone that is not there, Kellie tries to put her foot down, yet Robin overrules her and takes things a step further. While selling off some of their old stuff at a garage sale, Kellie is shocked to see what her future stepmom has added to the pile, her mother’s necklace. Taking the necklace and retreating to her room, Kellie has no idea what powers it is holding inside.

Getting a visit from her friend Todd, Kellie is found out when Abby’s window is slammed shut. While Abby claims that the spirit in the house is her mother, Kellie believes that it is something else and starts to wander the halls at night trying to get the spirit to go away. Being able to aggravate the spirit to the point where it kills the family cat, Kellie is certain that the spirit means the family harm. Getting a buy in from the adults in the house, Kellie holds the key to the nasty spirit that is going to try and keep the family from being happy and safe, but what she doesn’t know is that the spirit has a different intention altogether and is looking to make itself known before it is too late.

This is a pretty cool little movie and while I didn’t agree with the ending, it is what the storyline was driving towards throughout, so it made perfect sense. As the story really revolved around Kellie throughout, Robin was really a fun surprise with her very pointy artwork. The family dynamic was the main thing to watch as Robin was happy to take on some of the things that Kellie has been doing over the past years and seeing the young woman’s distrust in this was a little unnerving. I will just leave it at that because I don’t want to give away what happens at the end as a twist is in the making. With killer artwork, a family trying to move on, a protective daughter, an invisible friend, a haunted house, a cat no more and a dangerous spirit, this movie did a great job bringing everything together in the end and you will never forget the eyes of someone that does not want to go back to the way things were. Stay Scared.

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