The Quiet Ones (2014)

The Quiet Ones is a British Hammer horror film directed by John Pogue. The film was released on April 10, 2014 in the United Kingdom and April 25, 2014 in the United States. The film stars Jared Harris as a college professor attempting to create a poltergeist. The film is being marketed as being based upon a true story.

Plot
Professor Coupland is a British professor who decides that he will test the theory that paranormal activity is caused by human negative energy by attempting to create his own poltergeist. He enlists his best students to help him with his experiment, which is off the grid and unofficial. To further their ends they use Jane Harper, a semi-willing patient that they will push to the bounds of her sanity. However, while the group wants to create a poltergeist, they are unprepared for the consequences of such a task.

Oxford, 1970's. A student attends the class of a teacher wishing to prove there is no supernatural. He shows a video of a boy obsessively drawing the portrait of a man, seemingly possessed. Coupland then explains more research shall be lead to find a cure to this kind of diseases and that if they healed one person, they would be able to heal the entire world. One of his students Brian McNeil decides to know more about the experiment he wishes to undertake and is ultimately invited to film the experiment process. He discovers the strange universe of Coupland, his two assistants Krissi and Harry as well as their experiment subject Jane Harper (Olivia Cooke), a depressed young woman who forgot nearly all of her past. It is revealed later that she generates strange phenomenon around her and has been abandoned, carried from one foster family to the other. She considers that Coupland saved her and could cure her. Jane is generally locked in a room with Rock music broadcasting very loud during daytime. After a disturbing first encounter with her, Brian is left scared but intrigued.

When the experiment funding is cut, Coupland and his now three assistants leave Oxford to settle in an isolated house in the country side to keep experimenting on Jane's case. They discover a name: Evey, an infant Jane is the only one to see. The patient is then given a doll in order to put in the poltergeist or Jane's negative energy in order to destroy it for good.

Each evening, the group tries to learn more about "Evey" through what looks like spiritualism. Jane complains every time about the heat, describes fire without further precision. The further they drive Jane toward her insanity, the stranger things get around the house. Brian is upset by the way Jane is treated and the lack of ethics of the experiment in itself. He starts to doubt on his will to continue filming the experiment, while Krissy seems to be sexually involved with both Coupland and Harry. Meanwhile, Evey's apparitions become increasingly aggressive and Jane gets hurt several time during the seances.

One night, as the electricity is cut out, Jane escapes from the room she is normally confined in. Her screams lead the research team to the attic, where they find her. As they ask her where Evey is, she answers the girl is just next to them on a burnt cradle. As she tries to carry an invisible Evey from the bed, her dress catches fire. Her skin is then marked with a strange scar in the shape of an unknown sign.

Tired and scared of the experiment, Krissi and Harry temporarily leave the house to go back to Oxford. As Krissi takes her bath, the water starts boiling but she manages to escape and come back to the house, infuriated by the danger Jane represents suggesting to lock her in an asylum. Back to Oxford as well, Brian discovers the meaning of the shape found on Jane's body after the power cut. It referred to an antique goddess venerated in a cult believing that the soul of this goddess was possessing a little girl called Evey. They isolated themselves in the very house Coupland occupies. Brian then learns that a house fire killed all the cult members and their idol, leaving no survivor.

He confronts Coupland who denies all implication of supernatural activity and claims Evey is all made up in Jane's head, that she heard about the cult once as a child and manifests it in her current madness. He keeps experimenting, making every trial increasingly violent for his subject. The trio of assistants and Jane then discover a tape of the young boy presented in Coupland first class: the boy was Coupland's son he was unable to cure and finally died from self harm in an asylum. Jane gets mad and lets Evey manifest herself, killing both Krissi and Harry. This episode does not prevent Coupland from continuing his experiments, as Jane remembers her past and reveals to Brian that Evey is no one else but herself and shows him the cult's mark inside her upper lip. Jane Harper was the identity she was given after surviving the house fire years ago. After another incident Coupland inflicts a blow in Brian's head, leaving him unconscious.

Brian wakes up in Jane's confinement room, tied on a piece of furniture. He hears Coupland explaining him one way to heal Jane would to be kill her temporarily and oust Evey out of he recipient body, then reanimate her when the spirit is eliminated. He stops Jane's heart during excruciating minutes in which he waits for Evey to appear. In vain. Brian sets himself free out of rage and gets involved in a fight with Coupland. He ultimately restarts Jane's heart, just for her to say she does not want and cannot be healed. She pushes Brian out of her confinement room, locks it with Coupland inside and lets herself be set alight, probably by Evey. Brian desperately watches Jane being burnt alive with Coupland in the confinement room. A spitfire then flies at him.

Brian is finally seen in an asylum, looking insane and banging his head on his video camera telling the truth is "in there".

Cast

 * Jared Harris as Professor Coupland
 * Sam Claflin as Brian McNeil
 * Olivia Cooke as Jane Harper
 * Erin Richards as Kristina Dalton
 * Rory Fleck-Byrne as Harry Abrams
 * Laurie Calvert as Phillip
 * Max Pirkis
 * Richard Cunningham as Provost
 * Gemma Garvin

Production
Hammer Film Productions began the principal photography of the film on 12 June 2013 in England. Filming started in July in Oxfordshire. The films director is John Pogue and it was first written by Tom DeVille and then revised by Craig Rosenberg, Oren Moverman and John Pogue. Ben Holden and James Gay-Rees are producing the film, while Glenn Garland is the editor and Matyas Erdely is the cinematographer of the film. Camille Brenda is the costume designer of the film.