By Pete Hammond
WHAT IT'S ABOUT? Loosely based on a documentary about a family who encountered strange goings-on in their new home, this Hollywood-ized version finds the Campbell clan moving into a Victorian-style house in upstate Connecticut, only to find it was once a funeral parlor dating back to the 1920s where spiritual entities crossed over, thanks to the then-owner's clairvoyant son Jonah. You might think they would have gotten the idea that all was not so charming and quaint by the fact there's also a creepy cemetery next door but with the father usually off on a drunken spree and Mom urgently needing a place to take care of her gravely ill cancer-stricken teenage son (not to mention two daughters), there wasn't much time to house-hunt. Now the past is starting to catch up with the present and the Campbell's face terrifying ghostly visitors at just about every turn.
WHO'S IN IT? At the center of this nightmare,
Virginia Madsen (
Sideways) is well-cast as the rock-solid mom, who has to contend with a weak hubby, sickly son and a new house seemingly populated by the dead! Madsen once dealt with
Candyman, so this haunted mansion should be a snap. As Matt, her son with a rare, usually fatal, cancer,
Kyle Gallner redefines intensity spending the bulk of the movie fighting demons of every kind — including his own.
Amanda Crew plays it by the numbers as daughter Wendy, the type of movie character that likes exploring dark, deserted rooms late at night. Martin Donovan is given the thankless role of the alcoholic father while
Elias Koteas is laughable as a Reverend, who tries to battle the home's devilish spirits and seems to be channeling Father Merrin from
The Exorcist.
WHAT'S GOOD? Besides Madsen? Not much. But at least this is one horror film based in some semblance of reality with the cancer plotline, adding a layer of credibility not found in today's usual brand of torture porn.
WHAT'S BAD? In taking its inspiration from countless psychological '60s classics like
The Haunting and
The Innocents to the more vivid terrors of
The Amityville Horror and
The Exorcist, it only serves to point up this incarnation's inadequacies. There are a few scares, but they are all produced by predictably quick editing and heightened music cues designed to give the audience a momentary rush and not much else.
FAVORITE SCENE: The unintentionally funny sequence when the family first discovers their new dream house may not have been such a good deal after all. It's even more terrifying than a sub-prime mortgage!