Haunting of Winchester House (2009)

Not even bad in a good way

Fantastic!

Expected more

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The Asylum have made a lot of real clunkers, and Haunting of Winchester House adds to that long list. I don't think it is quite down there as one of the absolute worst, but that does not stop it from being a movie with almost no redeeming features. The worst asset is I agree the acting, the worst being from Lira Kellerman and Patty Roberts who act in a very forced and artificial way throughout. Kimberly Ables Jindra is the least bad, she has moments where she is touchingly sincere but it is nothing special or memorable and she like everybody else fails to rise above her material. That's hardly a surprise though, because the dialogue is so inane and awkward that you want to vomit even thinking about it, and the characters are basically cookie-cutter cardboard cut-outs with no personality or development. The story also doesn't work, the telling of it is far too fragmented, random and predictable and it would have been scarier if the pacing hadn't felt like I was riding on the back of a snail, and that the scares didn't feel like a mish-mash of pre-existing horror/haunted house movies with none of the suspense, tension or thrills. Even though it is a haunted house movie, the origin of how it came to be so here was just not there, so everything just felt really underdeveloped, seeing as the movie is nearly an hour and a half there is no excuse for that. It looks very amateurish, the special effects look fake and are utilised far too obviously, the lighting gives the movie a very murky look and the camera shots are so fast and full of face shots and close-ups that it makes the action incoherent. And the music and sound effects are really overdone and just overbear everything. All in all, really as awful as I'd heard and a movie I wish to forget in the long run. 1/10 Bethany Cox

This movie was quite a surprise. Usually the movies made by "The Asylum" are mediocre, but this one was quite out of the normal standard.The storyline and plot was intense and something you immediately got yourself immersed into, because it is compelling and interesting. The story takes you places in a good pace and it leaves you wanting more.Now, I have been reading some of the reviews here already, and I will agree with what many have chiseled out, that the acting in the movie is not among the best of movie performances, but what drives and carries "Haunting of Winchester House" is not the acting, it is the story, the gloomy feeling of the place and the genuinely creepy sounds. Now, don't get me wrong, the acting wasn't all throughout bad through the entire movie, but there were points where it was painstakingly bad to look at. But the mood of the movie luckily made more than up for this fact.What I didn't fully understand was the directors obsession with having shadowy persons walk past the camera view. Sure it worked the first time, but it was done repeatedly over and over, to the point where it was just annoying to look at. There is nothing scary about some dark, silhouette passing through the view of the camera.Also, the "ghost", and I use the term loosely here, well they were more like walking dead (not zombies as per se). Had they chosen to go with a more ghost-oriented approach, the movie would have had so much more depth and value. The "ghosts" were too physical. Had they been transparent, wispy, incorporeal projections of themselves, it would have added so much more to the movie. But in all fairness, the main "ghost" was sort of disturbing and scary nonetheless.And the ending was amazing. That totally took me by surprise. I didn't see that coming. And an ending like that always sits well with me. I like it when movies are unpredictable and doesn't end in the traditional sugar-coated-Hollywood-fashion-ending that most movies do.As a fan of hauntings and supernatural phenomena, I found "Haunting of Winchester House" to be quite interesting, and the movie turned out to be much more impressive than I had anticipated. If you like ghost movies, and can live with some, at times, less than mediocre acting, then you should definitely check out "Haunting of Winchester House", because it is really quite good. Truth be told, then I had goosebumps several times throughout the movie.

Haunting of Winchester House is a unique horror film because not only is the story full of interesting twists and turns, but it was produced in 3-D. You will certainly find yourself jump and cringe at some the more intense scenes, for things will really JUMP out at you. It is so refreshing to see a horror film that doesn't merely rely on buckets of blood and fake body parts being flung around to supply the entertainment and bulk of the movie. The use of practical stunts and props within Haunting of Winchester House does add an element of realism that is lacking in so many movies today. Digital, it's always digital, but the effects leave a lasting impression when you can see that it is a real person in the shot, and not a computer image. Haunting of Winchester House creates a classic scary movie feel, but with modern cinematic touches and expression throughout. If you have numbed yourself with bloody, cheesy slasher films then perhaps this movie is not for you. But for those with a more refined taste for blood and chills, Haunting of Winchester House is right up your alley. I look forward to more films from director Mark Atkins and his crew. In a time where 3-D is the future of film, I can only imagine what is in store!

The actors - especially the mother - seemed quite sincere in their roles, but the story itself didn't really make any sense. It all seemed so random - just random ghosts at random times coming after random people in random ways and doing random things with them, all for no apparent reason. The characters were pretty much text-book cookie-cutter. There were entirely too many full-on face shots where the heads of the characters filled up the entire screen, back & forth between them. I never realized how annoying that could be, but I've never seen that kind of shot so over-used before. There is no discernible story, just a bunch of disjointed, discombobulated "fragments". Not very well plotted. If you don't care too much about story but just like seeing people scream & ghosts go, "Boo!", this will do it for you. But if you're looking for an interesting or engaging story of some sort, this really doesn't cut it.