Gutsycurene
Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
filippaberry84
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Billie Morin
This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Payno
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Catharina_Sweden
This movie was fairly entertaining for want of anything better to do on a Sunday afternoon, but as everything by Stephen King it had no depth - and it is not one of his best works either.Firstly, it was much too long. You cannot stretch out a haunted house movie for over four hours, because the viewers get used to the scary things in it. For instance, the two old female inhabitants who have stayed on in the house as ghosts, look really creepy the first and second time you see them. But the third or fourth time, you have become "friends" with them..! And then there became too many dead people who turned into ghosts, to be shocking or even interesting anymore...IF you want to write a whole miniseries about a haunted house, I think there must be some other strong storyline as well, apart from the haunting. For instance a treasure hunt or a love story.Secondly, the movie is so obviously a plagiarism of "The Haunting" from 1963, and also the remake from 1999. The similarities simply are too many for them to be coincidences.Thirdly, and worst, was the high piano music and/or "creepy sounds" almost throughout the whole movie. It was so loud, that it was very difficult to hear what the actors were saying - I had to try to read their lips! But I wonder if this mistake can really have been possible in the original - it seems incredible! Maybe someone has manipulated my copy of it (I downloaded it from the internet).Fourthly, it did not have any really good scares. Not the kind that make you jump, when you suddenly see something horrible. Many times the music etc. seemed to build up to this kind of scare - but one was always disappointed by what one really saw. As so often with Stephen King, the scares were more unpleasant and gory than those "pure and high" scares in old Gothic ghost stories - that I think are the ideal in horror..!I will remember two scenes from this movie though, because they were very funny. Firstly, the "nerd" who (in the beginning) was quite indifferent to the powers who tried to scare him off, and just told them "try doing that to someone who isn't broke". (Because he needed the money he would get for taking part too much to care about anything else.) And secondly the very last pictures, when Joyce, the career-hungry, female researcher who had led them all into the mess and then died in the house herself in the end, was herself one of the ghosts in the haunted house - and obviously had resigned to her fate. Of some reason I thought this very funny - maybe because I have known some ruthless career women just like her..!
Besart Prishtina
First of all i can't believe that i missed this M-S all these years, but i saw this on a Stephen King profile here at IMDb and i rent it and i'm very pleased that i did.From the beginning i had high hopes about this and those hopes came true, and i really enjoyed. BTW "haunted houses" have always been in my priority list.Script was good acting too especially Annie (seemed so real), last ten minutes scene was the most enjoyable part. Hoverer the thing that bothered me is that Judith Ivey wasn't involved as much as she deserves.I recommend this to anyone who skipped this "unintentionally" like i did.
dwr246
I generally enjoy adaptations of Steven King stories, especially when he does the adapting, and this was no exception. It has some surprising weaknesses, but all in all it was a very enjoyable movie.The story focuses on Professor Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis), a professor of psychology, whose fascination with the paranormal, and obsession with the mansion called Rose Red, have earned her the scorn of her department head, Professor Carl Miller (David Dukes). In fact, Prof. Miller's only desire in life seems to be to discredit Joyce, and to that end he has hired reporter Kevin Bollinger (Jimmi Simpson) to spy on her, take damaging pictures, and write damaging articles. While Miller sees Joyce's obsession with Rose Red as a way to completely humiliate her, Joyce sees it as a way to prove her theories about the paranormal. And it just so happens that Joyce is now seeing Steve Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar), descendant of John (John Procaccino) and Ellen (Julia Campbell) Rimbauer, the original builders of the mansion. So, it's not much of a problem to get access to the house for a weekend to do some research. And Joyce has lined up some special guests to assist her: Pam Asbury (Emily Deschanel), a psychic who gets impressions from objects she touches; Vic Kandinsky (Kevin Tighe), a psychic who's precognitive; Emery Waterman (Matt Ross), a mamma's boy with undetermined psychic abilities; Nick Hardaway (Julian Sands), whose strong psychic talents aren't really given a name; Cathy Kramer (Judith Ivey), whose gift is automatic writing; and Annie Wheaton (Kimberly J. Brown), an autistic girl with powerful psychic gifts, who is accompanied by her sister, Rachel (Melanie Lynskey), better known as Sis. Asserting that Rose Red is a dead cell, Joyce hopes to "awaken" the house, which, indeed she does, with results that surprise them all.King's storytelling is as good as ever in this particular piece. He creates a brooding and foreboding atmosphere, and for the most part, gives just enough information to let you figure out what has happened. That being said, some of his characterizations are surprisingly weak, Sis and Annie's parents (Mary Jo Dugaw and Robert Blanche) are almost more caricatures, than characters, especially the abusive father. And a little more information about what actually happens to Pam, Vic, and Nick would have been helpful, although I suspect that may be due to elements that didn't translate well from the narrative. It's a little slow at times, but overall, it's a good, suspenseful story.The acting was also very good. I'm not a huge fan of Nancy Travis, but I have to give her credit for creating a sympathetic character in the scenes that are told from her point of view, and a much less sympathetic character in scenes that are told from the point of view of others. I always enjoyed David Dukes, and was sad to note that this was his last performance, and that he died while filming the movie. Judith Ivey did an excellent job in a non comic role. Matt Ross and Julian Sands did good jobs with their characters. Emily Deschanel and Kevin Tighe are sadly wasted in unfortunately small roles. The film really belongs to Matt Keeslar, Melanie Lynskey, and most notably Kimberly J. Brown, all of whom turned in wonderful performances.It's a bit long, especially when shown all at once, which is how SyFy has been doing it, but I still think it is well worth investing the time to see a very scary, and very well done movie.
buzzerbill
At his best, Stephen King has good ideas and writes excruciatingly bad prose. And even the good ideas vanish in the translation to the screen. In my experience, there are only two good movies made from King's books--Christine and The Dead Zone (The Shining is Kubrick's biggest disappointment.) Rose Red is the worst haunted house film I have ever seen, and in the top 1% of worst movies I have ever seen. Gregory, the infallible movie cat, who normally responds to bad films with a disdainful sniff and a malodorous trip to the litter box, nearly made the same comment in from of the television about 10 minutes into the second segment.Where oh where can we start? Let's start with the special effects, if only to dismiss them. Pretty as they are, they dress up a pig. And as we all should know, you can dress up a big, put lipstick on her, and call her Monique--but she is still a pig. No bad film was ever made good with special effects--and this turkey is a prime example.How about the cast? On the whole pretty good, with a couple of veterans like Judith Ivey and Julian Sands, both of whom are capable of enlivening a film. Not here.And now, the plot. Oh, the plot. What a dreadful mess. First of all, it's a mishmash of elements from far better work. The house that's alive and malignant? And the experiment with psychics? Look no further than the best of all haunted house movies, the original version of The Haunting (not the remake!). Even King used it before in The Shining. The child medium? Firestarter, and any of a dozen different films and movies. And The Haunting did more in two hours than this in well over four.And why? To begin with, everything, including the kitchen sink and all the the plumbing, has been tossed in, with decidedly ill effect. We have academic politics. We have a mad scientist in Nancy Travis's character, who is so annoying that it's a wonder that the rest of the investigators didn't roll her up in a carpet and jump up and down, up and down, crushing her like Nero did Poppea. For heaven's sake, we even have a nerd with a neurotic smothering mother--a veritable field day for Freud.And what is worse--far far worse--is that the whole preposterous farrago makes NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. Why does writing "Open the doors" 100 times open the doors? If the house is the evil entity, why does its influence extend far the house. And, for that matter, given the aerial shots of the house in the middle of downtown Seattle, where the devil is all the open space in which characters keep getting lost? And we do not get to see the house blown up at the end? A terrible cheat-perhaps the SFX budget ran out. And, to cap it all, the dialogue is written--and delivered (with a few exceptions) in a fever pitch of hysteria that heightens the overall sense of--well, confusion is perhaps the kindest word for it.Four hours on DVD, six on television with breaks. For heaven's sake, save yourself time and brain cells. Rent a good film like the original version of The Haunting or The Uninvited (Ruth Hussy, Ray Milland.) Why anyone watches this festering heap of poo is beyond me.