The Haunting...

The previews made it look so good, didn't they? Of course, that's what they're designed to do. The truth is, it was very disappointing for me. The previews lulled me into expecting a freaky horror flick that would stand shoulder to shoulder with "The Shining", or "Poltergeist"(the first one). It wasn't even that freaky. It had a ok set up, a good beginning, a powerful middle, but a really stupid, lame "that's it?" ending.

I was greatly disappointed, the weak story revolves around Dr. Marrow (Liam Neeson), a doctor that studies fear, and plans on bringing some insomniacs, Catherine Zeta-Jones(Theo, a Bi-sexual artist) Lili Taylor (Nell, a real head case) and Owen Wilson (Luke, a 20 something slacker] in, under the guise of a sleep study, to see what they'd come up with to scare themselves. Except... what if the house is really haunted!

Neeson's character tells a half history to the group, then Neeson's assistant gets hurt and an extra subject takes her to the hospital, leaving the four left in the house. Neeson's character the "darker side" of the story and immediately tells Zeta-Jones, and Taylor's characters the story. Well, it turns out that the builder of the house was a sweat shop owner, and killed a lot of children. Somehow, the children's souls are trapped in the house, still under the power of that old evil guy. The three insomniacs start seeing things and the doctor thinks it's their imaginations.

Well, as it turns out Nell (Taylor's character) is the granddaughter of the old evil dude and the children cry out to her. She goes loopy. Wilson's character dies and Taylor's dies fighting her evil granddaddy and a piece of artwork drags him down to hell and frees the children. HOW THE HELL DOES ART BECOME REALITY!?!?

That's just one of my problems with the film. Another, is that the caretakers lock them in the house (chain the gate,) when they know the house in haunted. When they ram the gates, they do it with the littlest car they got. Now I'm all for "It doesn't have to be gory to be a scary movie," but come on! It could have used at least one more dieable character. I mean, 4 subjects for a test (the one that went to the hospital being the fourth).... yeah, right.

This movie had a lot of momentum going, it had me into it, I was liking it, but then the end just ..ugh.. sucked. The acting in this movie was great. The main four characters are GREAT in their parts, but it doesn't cover up the shoddy story. Rental at best.