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The Haunted Mansion (2003)
The best way to describe Disney’s third movie based on a theme park ride is this: its exactly like the ride. Which means it’s nice to look at but little else is there. Eddie Murphy, in his soul-selling kid friendly phase of his career, is a real estate salesman who cant pass up the prospect of a mansion. Never mind it’s haunted. He brings the family along, which includes a drop-dead beautiful wife, Sara (Marsha Thomason), and two annoying kids. There’s some storyline about Sara being the one to break the curse of the mansion, something about love never dying and a mystic key which leads to a mystic chest … I know, I’m bored already too. Despite being a mere 98 minutes The Haunted Mansion has sluggish pacing and some cheesy special effects. This is the kind of movie someone has a fear only because they need a moment to overcome that fear to save others. Murphy mugs for the camera and occasionally its funny, but he has the expression that even he doesn’t believe hes funny. Never good for an actor. Terrence Stamp is amusing as the butler. Jennifer Tilly is a highlight at the floating gypsy head in the crystal ball. The direction by Rob Minkoff (Stewart Little 2) is solid, and his opening sequence of the film’s back-story being played across the credits is the highlight. But what does it say when the highlight of the film is the opening titles? I don’t know who this film is for. It’s a bit too scary for young kids. Tweens won’t want to see a “Disney scary movie” and would rather see some of the PG-13 scares, like The Ring. It certainly isn’t for adults. Who is this movie for Disney? And I may be the only one, especially after recent events in the news, but when all the skeletons came out of their crypts … I thought Michael Jackson was going to come out and theyd all dance.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Others (2001)
Nicole Kidman has saved the summer of 2001 – it is now official. In what would have been deemed a pit of mediocrity and nightmares consisting of Angelina Jolie as some raider of tombs or Marky Mark making dough-eyes at attractive apes, has now been bookended by two terrific Kidman films. First Moulin Rouge ushered us in and now The Others is leading us the way out.
The Others is the tale of Grace (Kidman) trying to take care of her two ailing young children shortly after the end of World War II. Kidman is waiting for the return of her husband from the war and is all alone in a giant Gothic mansion. Her two children suffer from a rare allergy to sunlight that is so severe that if exposed long enough their bodies will develop markings and they will asphyxiate to death. To accommodate this illness the entire Kidman household is in the dark and grounded in stern rules. No door is to be unlocked without locking the last, like trapping water in compartments of a sinking ship.
Grace discovers that she does need help and accepts three mysterious strangers that have said they were caretakers to this house once before. Before long the children start reporting odd events occurring that resemble ghosts; a door is opened when it shouldn’t be, someone is making noise where there is no one, and the children report having interaction with otherworldly spirits. Grace scoffs at any notion of the paranormal and goes back to instructing her children with the Bible and its accounts of penance and hell. The incidences begin to build further and further until The Others becomes a full-fledged ghost spectacle.
Spanish writer/director Alejandro Amenábar’s first English feature film is one of carefully textured craft and effective mood. The Others follows the points of ghost stories closely from dark hallways to the creepy and slightly dilapidated house closely. Every move, though, is so well in tune that they are highly effective in creating actual suspense and spookiness. One may have seen the same items numerous times before, however The Others utilizes them so gracefully that it achieves the full desired impact each can bring. Amenábar has created a ghost story that is genuinely creepy and at times scary.
Kidman shines as the dutiful and determined mother. Her performance is one of great dedication and she just consumes whole-heartedly the distress, confusion, and fear of this lonely mother. She is a true anchor for a film. Watching every moment of her on screen is amazing as well as invigorating. This role may lead to possible Oscar buzz come the end of the year but that is just speculation for now.
The rest of the acting is very thorough and well handled by the few other cast members. James Bentley and Alakina Mann portray Kidman’s afflicted children and have much of the movie hinging on their performances. Not to worry, these two excel and give credence to being two of the more gifted child actors in a while. Their efforts greatly induce sympathy as well as great scares at key moments.
The story of The Others by Amenábar may seem simplistic, or even predictable, but the more I thought of the structure and the order of events the more well oiled and calculated it became. This is a delicate story told with great precision with a fantastic knockout ending that had me reworking everything. The Others is an example of why screenwriting is not yet dead in Hollywood.
The Others is a wonderfully brooding film with real scares and great performances, as well as terrific turns in writing and directing by Amenábar. Nicole Kidman has thankfully done it again, and if anyone dares doubt the power and newfound importance of her then see the rest of the summer of 2001’s offerings.
Nate’s Grade: A
Reviewed 20 years later as part of the “Reviews Re-View: 2001” article.
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What Lies Beneath (2000)
I cannot write any review of What Lies Beneath without it also turning into an essay on old people. And so fellow reader I give you… “Nate’s Essay on the Movie Watching Habits of the Elderly or: What Lies Beneath the Review.” [Editor’s note: his review was written originally by a testy and somewhat snide 18-year-old me, so please excuse the ageism attack on elderly movie habits, not that there isn’t still truth to this.]
The tale is one of a happily married couple who are just going through the empty-nest syndrome when their only daughter leaves home for college. Michelle Pfeiffer is a strung out house wife trying to fill up her days and enjoy time with her Harrison Ford-like husband. But all is not well in the house. Michelle starts experiencing visions of ghosts in bath water (bathtubs play a huge role in this flick, bigger than red in Sixth Sense likely) as well as coincidental things that you know aren’t at all coincidental. How many times does the door have to open for you by itself before you put two and two together? Anyway Michelle comes undone and tries telling her husband of her spirit stalkings but he believes she’s crazy. In the end we all know it’s the dead spirit of Ford’s mistress mainly because of the trailer and commercials giving us every twist a la Double Jeopardy. I will say this, the last twenty minutes are ludicrous and laughably bad.
Beneath could be argued as an homage to Hitchcock, but that would be slandering Hitchcock. Hitch could hold an audience, show them new things, and play a crowd like a piano. All What Lies Beneath did was put me to sleep.
What Lies Beneath is supposed to be an “adult” scary picture but does no more but define its intentions with the overused but reliable and disappointing jump scare. A jump scare never truly scares but only startles – usually brought on by a loud BANG! in the orchestral score. But no one admires jump scares. No child grows up wishing he can make the ultimate jump scare movie because it’s basically a cheap reaction or reflex. Build an entire concept of “scariness” on this principle and it’s even cheaper. Old people fall for every one of them too and then sit back loudly talking to their friends about how they were had.
Old people are far more talkative through movies then children, teenagers, and people who frequent seizures combined! This isn’t one single occurrence as well, the same thing happened when I saw The Patriot and subsequently Space Cowboys. Old people talk constantly throughout a movie carrying on conversations loudly as if they weren’t watching a film but rather a child playing in the distance. It’s even more difficult to pay attention to a dull film when you keep hearing everyone’s stories around you, though one man’s story of holiday cooking had me at “hello.”
In short stay away from What Lies Beneath or any movie that skews to a demographic that watches reruns of Murder She Wrote. Old people may enjoy their movies… just don’t see any with them if you have the choice.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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House on Haunted Hill (1999)
There are some classic horror pics in haunted houses, and the Vincent Price cheese-fest original of House on Haunted Hill is one. The original was campy fun and worth rewatches, but how does the remake fare with a 40 year age gap between the two?
What House on Haunted Hill miraculously achieves what Jan DeBont’s Haunting had tumble through its sticky CGI fingers: the establishment of a true unsettling mood. All throughout Hill you can actually feel the seething, eerie mood inspired from the wonderfully creepy ambiance of the constructed sets. It has a darker component and launches into many sequences of frightening imagery that seem like left-overs from Jacob’s Ladder but are no less effective. So maybe the plot is basically a premise that once established pretty much thins out to non-existence. You will be thinking to yourself that half of the flick is people wandering aimlessly in the bowels of an asylum when they should have enough common sense to not be.
There is no relevant acting since the cast is regarded to fill out the standard stereotypes and yell cheesy zingers at one another with F-bombs spliced into every line. This ain’t yo’ daddy’s House on Haunted Hill! Geoffery Rush, who talked funny in Shine and won an Oscar and who talked funny in Shakespeare in Love and got an Oscar nomination, gleefully plays the host of the supernatural shindig. And he talks funny. Taye Diggs surmises the “funny non-white” character, Chris Kattan surmises the “goofy nutball” character, Famke Janssen plays the “bitchy wife… who can crush people with her thighs” character, and the rest of the cast are interchangeable blondes who actually do get a bit interchanged physically.
Hill is a good shift in your seat spooker up until the end which just really drops the ball beyond belief into a cheap cop-out. Everything up until the part where the “ultimate evil” cloud of charcoal or something is visually haunting and solid entertainment even if it has to run to gore well once too often. But this whole slow moving cloud descends the movie into mediocrity and it just gets more hokey as it goes. The effects for the “ultimate evil” are preposterously bad and wouldn’t frighten a 4-year old with a bladder problem.
Up until the final ten minutes or so, House on Haunted Hill is a guilty pleasure directed sharply to instill the correct senses one should bring out of the story and setting. Hill has moments of inspiration and memorable scenes of horrific faceless demons and hallucinatory flashes of the macabre and bizarre. But the absurdly thrown together ending drowns what could have been a real Halloween treat.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Stir of Echoes (1999)
Another one? Yes and no, you see Stir of Echoes may be the latest supernatural scare-fest released but it proves itself a worthy competitor to The Sixth Sense. Director Koepp, the man among boys when it comes to screenwriting, provides enough eerie chills through the movie without having to go back to the well for any cheap scares much. The direction and unveiling of the story is very well done for the movie’s overall tone.
The meat and bones of this picture is Kevin Bacon. He throws down all the doors and delivers a riveting performance that is most likely his career best. But what about Wild Things you say? Well indeed Kevin showed his bacon in that movie, but in Stir of Echoes he beautifully captures a man breaking down by forces he can’t understand or control. He is magnetic with his character and provides real merit to the film’s compelling case for credibility in The Sixth Sense‘s powerful shadow. Another bright face in the movie is Kathryn Erbe playing Bacon’s suffering and distant significant other. She delivers a rock-solid performance to coexist with Bacon’s descent into madness. She may not get the credit she deserves but she quietly shows her acting prowess in every scene she’s in.
The movie does seem to run out of gas 3/4 of the way through, switching over from mysterious supernatural chiller to run-of-the-mill revenge from beyond the grave scenario. The end is mostly predictable but no less effective. Some of the characters could have been fleshed out better to have more purpose for the finale but I guess you can live with how things are.
In any other given summer Stir of Echoes would be destined to be a critical and commercial success, but then along came The Sixth Sense. True that there are some similar plot points but both movies are worth while complete with some chills themselves. Stir of Echoes does deserve to get more than a look in this new genre that’s being heavily populated by filth. Besides, it’ll allow you a few more people to link to Kevin Bacon whenever a party game arises.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Sixth Sense (1999)
August is mostly thought of as a time of dead water for summer movies. But now I think it should be regarded as the best month for film this whole mediocre summer, and The Sixth Sense is one of the main reasons. Though the title kinda’ sucks.
In a summer low on genuine chills here’s one movie that offers honest-to-God-grip-the-armrest-chills. It’s very moody when it needs to be and creepy when it never has to be but is anyway, and constantly moving. The Sixth Sense also offers audiences something they haven’t seen this summer: real characters with depth. The characters leap from the screen and are slowly established as complicated, rounded, and very thoughtful people. Now that’s something that took me for surprise.
Bruce Willis achieves his quiet mode and teams up yet again with another child (a la Mercury Rising). Willis’ acting is solemn and just enough to drive his character through his quest. You haven’t seen Bruce Willis show this much emotion since he walked over glass in Die Hard! But the story of The Sixth Sense is a little tyke that comes from out of nowhere and redefines child acting. To say Haley Joel Osment carries the film is an understatement – he throws it on his back and runs a 4.3 with it. If Ana Paquan can win an Oscar for babysitting a piano then this kid deserves one too. This is the greatest child actor I’ve seen in years and I begin to wonder why Lucas chose his miscast young Anakin.
The best thing The Sixth Sense has is intelligence. It rewards those who stood up and paid attention with a knock-out terrific ending that wraps everything up you questioned before. And you will rerun things in your mind over and over when you leave the theater. My only complaint, and it is small, is that the direction could be tighter at times. But for everything The Sixth Sense has to offer I will gladly wait in line for seconds. The best summer chiller, and one of the best movies of the year. The title still sucks though.
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Haunting (1999)
Is this what passes for horror these days? Get an Irish Jedi, a Spanish sword fighting hot tamale, an indie queen, and the co-writer of Rushmore and Bottle Rocket in a creepy home and have curtains blow in the shapes of faces? Is there anyone out there truly terrified of curtains?
From Jan de Bont, the director most known for making cows fly, comes possibly the weakest horror pic ever assembled on two legs. This is no different than the weekend drive-in where they showed all the wretchedly corny movies of people in giant plastic costumes slowly walking and terrorizing young teenagers in love. Except now the costumes are far more expensive. Beyond that nothing has changed.
The story is a bit of a mystery. It’s light when there needs to be more meat, and heavy when it needs to explain itself. It even goes a step further into fulfilling the dreams of many by making Catherine Zeta-Jones bisexual. And of course then there’s the contrived happy ending that seems like something they tacked on from the outcome of a test screening.
The best asset The Haunting has is the utterly beautiful and breath-taking house and sets. You’ll hear it’s name around Oscar time for set designs, and most likely on the winner’s ballot as well. I was wrapped up in the scenery and fell in love with it. Maybe this is a trick by the movie so you don’t notice how bad it really is, well it almost worked. But this isn’t an episode of This Old House, though that might have been scarier.
With the aid of some cheap jump scares and splashy effects, The Haunting registers nothing in the world of frights and fear. It’s really unintentionally funny at many many parts. In fact the audience I saw this with was laughing far more than they were screaming. So you could label The Haunting as the funniest movie of the summer if you wanted. Some movies are just born bad.
Nate’s Grade: D+
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