The Skeptic

I really liked this film. Like my title says it was clever and scary, maybe even a little too much in places. At one point, I must admit, I had my hands in front of my eyes.

A 30 something lawyer moves into his aunts large house after her death. He soon experiences signs that the house may be haunted, but is it haunted or is it all in his head? Either way it makes for a scary movie, and that is what's clever about this film. It leaves you with questions. Good questions, not holes in the script, but intelligent thought provoking stuff. OK maybe that's going a bit far, it's not Freud or anything but it is good solid cinema. Good acting and an evenly paced well executed script. Nice to see Tom Arnold too.

A lawyer's aunt dies and he inherits her house, which she believed to be haunted. He decides to stay there while separated from his wife, and why shouldn't he? After all, he's a die-hard skeptic.

This is a very low-key haunted house tale. I'd say it works more as a mystery than outright horror, though it's all fairly straightforward. While the old house is an atmospheric setting, the film is devoid of any chilling moments. Well, I take that back. There is one good scare, but it turns out to be a false one, no threat. The atmosphere of the house is there, it's just that the filmmakers fail to utilize it to any sizable extent. I also felt that the ending was too abrupt. I don't mind abrupt endings, but this one really pushed it.

Tim Daly is okay as the "unemotional" lead. Not really a likable sort, I'd say. Tom Arnold is here too, but his part is basically a nothing role. It's Zoe Saldana who steals the show as a high-strung, yet appealing psychic. She could go on to greater things, and no, I absolutely do not consider Avatar a greater thing.

The Skeptic isn't bad, but it's nothing too memorable. I do admire it for attempting a quiet, more intimate ghost story in this day of obnoxious, in your face haunting flicks.

With a very alluring synopsis, I sat down to watch "The Skeptic" with the hopes for a haunting. However, the movie did turn out to be something beyond that. A good or bad thing? Well, I had expected it to be a supernatural story about a haunting, so my expectations were throws a bit off course with what the movie turned out to be.

"The Skeptic" starts out quite well and does build up some interesting characters and situations. And director Tennyson Bardwell did manage to keep the movie going at a good pace and build up some really tense situations. Personally, I didn't enjoy the revelation of what was really going on, although you did guess it about halfway through the movie, so it was not a surprise twist of events. Just a bit disappointing to me.

I don't think I have seen Tim Daly in anything since "Wings", which was a great show back then. So I wasn't sure what to expect here. But I was more than pleasantly surprised, because he really did a good job and carried the movie quite nicely. And he had most of the weight of the movie on his shoulders as he was essentially solo in the movie most of the time. But he held his ground and performed quite well.

What really worked out quite well for this movie was the character gallery. They had some very interesting and well-detailed characters in the storyline. And I was especially fond of Bryan Becket (played by Tim Daly) because of his skeptic approach to everything supernatural and his direct method of handling things. So the characters in the movie were well-rounded and had personalities and depth to them.

Now, there were very little special or practical effects in the movie, which was a disappointment to me. But of course, with what the movie actually turned out to be, it would have made no sense to have had "The Skeptic" to be a movie filled with special effects.

There were some good and tense moments here and there throughout the course of the movie, but I wouldn't really say that this movie was rich on actual scary moments. So the thriller aspect of the movie outweighs the horror aspect, just as a heads up.

"The Skeptic" is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing, because the storyline just doesn't have enough aspects, levels or depth to support entertainment for more than a single viewing.

I was fairly entertained, but found the turn of events and the root of actual events to be a bit disappointing. And as such, then I am rating "The Skeptic" a mediocre five out of ten stars.

I was hoping for something better from the skeptic really. It was a film that was not very scary and yet again its another film with a bad ending that makes it feel like it was not worth it. So theres this man called bryan. He gets a call the second his aunt is found dead and just like that he moves into the house she has left behind. Bryan does not actual own the house as his aunt left it to an institute that specilises in paranormal stuff so he helps them and zoe saladana and in the process discovers things about his own past. The script was written quickly the acting is decent just not a scary film.

Honestly I was really enjoying this, but I feel like it ended too abruptly/prematurely right when we should've gotten a more intense and emotional "fight scene" I guess you could say. Honestly even another 10-20 minutes could've really helped make the ending more enjoyable and satisfying. I was also hoping we would see more of Cassie and that she would play a role in the ending of the movie. I would probably have rated this a bit higher if it wasn't for the ending because I feel like it had interesting characters and dynamics, as well as good performances from all of the cast. If you're on the fence about watching this, I would say do it since it was pretty enjoyable for the most part!