Synopsis
Dana and David, along with their 5-year-old son, are looking
for a fresh start. They move into a beautiful old home in a rural area and the
house is everything they ever dreamed of. But things turn awry when Dana
discovers a secret room in the attic. A series of weird events lead to her
discovering the long lost key to the room. She accidentally unlocks it and
releases a host of unimaginable horrors that reveal the terrifying past of the
house, which is horrifyingly connected to her own past.
A mother and her young son release unimaginable horrors from
the attic of their rural dream home.
In this psychological thriller from the director of Eagle Eye and Disturbia, Dana and David move from Brooklyn to a once-grand southern mansion with their 5 year old son looking for a fresh start. But Dana's discovery of a secret room unleashes unexplainable events that test her sanity and slowly reveal the home's terrifying past.
There is more mood than matter to be sampled in “The Disappointments Room,” a spooky psychological thriller — or, perhaps, a psychological thriller with spooks — that are initially intriguing but ultimately, unfortunately, lives down to its title.
ReplyDeleteWorse, there are hints of last-minute editing-room surgery: One character grimly examines newspaper clippings of local murders with allegedly supernatural links, but there’s absolutely no payoff for the portentous scene.
Investigating, Dana finds a lone armoire, and behind that a door that can only be locked from the outside, leading to a secret space with a metal floor, scratches and splotches everywhere, and a drain.
The charitable thing to say about Beckinsale is that her rarely-mussed, glam-frosty, casual chic demeanor simply isn’t right for the part.
The climax, a terribly conceived child endangerment sequence that fuses blecchy, hammer-induced gore and a mother’s devastating grief for dumb, obvious thrills, leaves the very worst aftertaste after an already tough swallow.
Kate Beckinsale does a really good job at playing a woman distressed over losing a child. Most movies don't usually show this part of the break down, as her character develops a drinking habit, starts looking at her husband differently, to the point that a new man has a chance to interfere with the relationship, and she's becoming distance from the child she still has, in most movies this happens before that family moves into the house, but hear it actual seems to be happening during.
ReplyDeleteThat is never a good idea, at least in schlock movies; you can be sure that disaster is lurking in the musty attic and leaking roof. No doubt the actress saw an opportunity to explore the psychology of grief, and she gives a compelling performance in scenes of mental anguish.
As Dana’s fears and fantasies spin out of control, we are treated to lurid images of hangings and ax murders, with Gerald McRaney cast as the satanic former master of the manse. But the film never generates any real suspense, and the ending seems particularly anticlimactic.