I have been a fan of the Stephen King world of now trademark horror and like so many of his older fans I have keep being disappointed at his most recent attempts to tap the dark vein.
First of all, Rose Red is not scary. That's quite obvious and almost blatantly intrinsic to this movie's plot. After all, the idea is to drag the action for as long as possible (yes, that means around 4 hours) and to make sure that the same computer animated scenes are played over and over again.
When will horror film makers figure out that glowing milky white ghosts are something straight out of a cartoon. The house itself which is supposed to the apex of everything as it embodies the true spirit of "evil" that is supposed to feed off people (original, isn't it?) fails to make an impression as it looks just like what it is: scenery. While aiming to create a truly exccentric building, the product of a diseased mind (a theme that was getting old around the time Poe turned around with the "House of Usher") the movie delivers a vaguely Victorian massive cardboard cliché-ed stereotype of a "haunted house". I suppose the idea is to reach that crystallized status of the site of evil, bred within the confines of lunacy and isolation. It does not pull it off.
Now, acting...it's average. It becomes downward atrocious when it is set side by side with those terribly inane "ghosts" that made me laugh. I cringe whenever I do as much as try to remember the sheer stupidity.
Then, King delivers a bunch of re visitations of his former works that do little more than cast a stain upon the times when he knew what he was doing. If you have read Carrie, you will recognize where the final scene with the falling stones came from, and if you read The Shining you will easily see that the character of Annie is an over simplified version of Danny meets Seth from The Regulators.
The annoying nursery line comes from the Storm of the Century, and I am sure I could find more things, were I to bother.
I won't, though.
Most horror fans hate this...monster and I have to agree with them.
1 out of 10, only because there is no zero.
First of all, Rose Red is not scary. That's quite obvious and almost blatantly intrinsic to this movie's plot. After all, the idea is to drag the action for as long as possible (yes, that means around 4 hours) and to make sure that the same computer animated scenes are played over and over again.
When will horror film makers figure out that glowing milky white ghosts are something straight out of a cartoon. The house itself which is supposed to the apex of everything as it embodies the true spirit of "evil" that is supposed to feed off people (original, isn't it?) fails to make an impression as it looks just like what it is: scenery. While aiming to create a truly exccentric building, the product of a diseased mind (a theme that was getting old around the time Poe turned around with the "House of Usher") the movie delivers a vaguely Victorian massive cardboard cliché-ed stereotype of a "haunted house". I suppose the idea is to reach that crystallized status of the site of evil, bred within the confines of lunacy and isolation. It does not pull it off.
Now, acting...it's average. It becomes downward atrocious when it is set side by side with those terribly inane "ghosts" that made me laugh. I cringe whenever I do as much as try to remember the sheer stupidity.
Then, King delivers a bunch of re visitations of his former works that do little more than cast a stain upon the times when he knew what he was doing. If you have read Carrie, you will recognize where the final scene with the falling stones came from, and if you read The Shining you will easily see that the character of Annie is an over simplified version of Danny meets Seth from The Regulators.
The annoying nursery line comes from the Storm of the Century, and I am sure I could find more things, were I to bother.
I won't, though.
Most horror fans hate this...monster and I have to agree with them.
1 out of 10, only because there is no zero.