mauro volvox
Stephen King has produced pages and more pages of the purest crap. Rose Red is proof of that. A psychologist/researcher wants to prove that the paranormal is real. She is risking everything even her career to accomplish it.So she assembles a team of people who have every type of ESP power to investigate a haunted house.The funny thing is that one of the members of her team is an autistic girl with extremely powerful telekinetic powers... and every other member of the team has some sort of ESP power too.Wouldn't it be smarter, safer, less expensive to take the autistic girl (and/or the other members of her team) and examine such girl and her powers instead of risking the lives of a bunch of ESP people in a ghost hunt inside a evil and malignant house?This is a pretty dumb way to start a story. Everything after that falls apart.This is for low IQ people only, or those folks who do not care about plots holes the size of Texas.
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.
sunznc
I really enjoyed this. It is very good, very well made and the acting is very good as well by everyone. The pace is good and it's engaging. However,......sometimes it takes a long time for the actors to play out their scenes, take you to the place in the house they want to be and then......something happens that you anticipate as being very scary only to see something very mild. In other words, it isn't exactly a frightening film. It is more mysterious. If you are in the mood for a good haunted mansion film then this will do the trick. If you are looking for intense scares, you might be disappointed. The special effects are good but not fantastic. This is story & character driven. Some scenes play out a little bit too long and end a little flat. I think the characters would have been much more shocked by the situations they find themselves in but they seem to brush things off pretty easy. Sometimes it has a 'made-for-tv' feel.
