Dream House (2011)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Admirable film.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Well, boring is a death sentence for any movie - but why is that one a bit boring? - Because it is very predictable - at some point, well before the who conclusion, you can put 1 and 1 together and then - you just float gently towards the end - experiencing exactly what you expected.Acting is nice (no surprise there, considering the cast) - and cinematography is well done, too in my opinion. It is the storytelling that lacks - and of course the rather generic plot as is.

I thought this was a really good movie, but I didn't really have any expectations going in, of it being a horror movie, so maybe that's the difference. This is a murder mystery and psychological thriller, and if you watch it as such, it's really quite good. Not sure what all the bad reviews are about, but that's my take on it.

What happens when you take a re-hashed who-done-it ghost story, throw in accomplished Irish director Jim Sheridan (Bloody Sunday, In America) and add an overly controlling production company? You get Dream House, a psychological ghost story centered around a sloppy murder mystery that offers a keyholes worth of insight into a potentially fruitful script. Without any press promotions, interviews, or test screens, Dream House quickly became a film destined for the gutter. What came out of all the tinkering and reworking is a film with an A-list cast that continually struggle and fail in their attempts to lift their film to something above the abysmal, plodding, and completely forgettable film it is.Beginning with the willful resignation of publisher Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) so he could spend more time with his family and his novel, Dream House introduces us to our titular house and the family that now resides within (Rachel Weisz, Taylor Geare, and Claire Astin Geare). Soon afterwards the daughters begin seeing a man lurking outside, and Will encounters a group of stereotypical goth kids who lead him on to the misdeeds that have occurred within the houses walls. With help from neighbor Ann Paterson (Naomi Watts) and her daughter Chloe (Rachel G. Fox), Will begins to dig deep into the murder of the home's previous family, only to discover something far worse.What plays out throughout the rest of the film is an endurance of patience, one that has no real reward or payoff. We are treated to a loving family and what they do within their home, to the investigative search of a man who must protect those he loves. All of this builds to almost nothing of what we have come to look for in a psychological thriller. Gone are the tense feelings, unnerving thoughts, white knuckles, and inevitable head rush as the story takes us in another direction. I almost don't know who to blame for this absence of anything resembling psychological horror, but Dream House seems to keep it under the floorboards, hidden from anyone who cares to enjoy its company.Surprising me the most is Daniel Craig as Will Atenton, who six years earlier gave us an amazing portrayal of crazy and paranoid in The Jacket, easily outshining its lead actor, Adrian Brody. What we are given as a representation of insane is slicked back greasy hair, a worn army jacket, and an empty stone look. Dream House also never bothers to truly show us a real descent into madness, with everything sort of blurring slowly into one mishmash of botched storytelling. Even Naomi Watts comes off dead in her tracks, delivering lines like the pouring of molasses; slow and wasteful. Whether or not you put blame on Jim Sheridan who has delivered excellent films in the past, or the production company Morgan Creek, Dream House is a film that delivers on little it has to offer. What begins as a potentially promising ghost story ends up unraveling into a yawn inducing attempt at psychological thrills. When we aren't being dragged along for the chase as one man uncovers the truth, we are treated to sappy, nightmare inducing family moments that feel carved out of an L.L. Bean catalog. Behind all of this poor execution is a small glimpse of what could have been an enjoyable yet been-there-done-that film, a glimpse that only adds to the disappointment. Dream House never manages to get its foundation established, causing the rest of it to sag and eventually collapse on to its own emptiness.

(12%) An oddly well cast, yet plodding, run-of-the-mill, and not at all scary horror that boggles the mind in how its script ever got picked up then managed to attract not one but three big name Hollywood stars. As this drags its clumsy feet from scene to scene you begin to wonder whether this has a ace card up its sleeve, sadly it doesn't, in fact the only interesting plot element doesn't really make a whole lot of good sense. Daniel Craig to be fair is trying to drag something out of this turkey, but it's not enough to make this anything other than a disappointingly below average, dull offering; and to claim that the trailer ruined the ending is giving the plot more respect than it deserves.