The Disappointments Room

Its movies like this that make you realize that sometimes, you can judge a movie by its title

Saw the movie today. I enjoyed watching Kate Beckinsale and I believe she made her character believable, you feel what the character is going through. However, this was supposed to be a HORROR, not a drama on Lifetime Movie Network. Some revelations are made before the middle of the movie and the pace just slowed and there were no more surprises or plot development. You know that part of a horror movie where the evildoing of the antagonist, the fighting back of the protagonist create a crescendo of visceral emotions in the viewer leading to a catharsis and release, that never happens. There were more than a couple of jump-scares but the possibilities from the plot and the characters just were not followed through and explored enough for the horror to happen for me. Nice story though and definitely worth a watch if you like scary TV dramas.

See if this synopsis sounds familiar: Dana and David Barrow have moved with their son Lucas to a house on the countryside to re-start their lives. Dana, who is an architect, is looking forward to redecorate their new living, but before long, something feel amiss. She seems to be seeing ghosts in the house, which initially is quickly dismissed as her having violent hallucinations from a recent loss, but then she discovers that the house has a sordid history, one that may come and haunt her and her family.

Everyone who has ever seen movies with haunted houses or families struggling with grief can see that they put The Woman in Black, The Sixth Sense, The Grudge, Antichrist, Poltergeist and The Orphanage into a blender for this film. One scene in particular with a boy and a creepy girl in a hallway seems directly lifted from the mother of all haunted house movies, The Shining. Now that could be seen as a respectful homage, but where some filmmakers like J.J. Abrams can combine elements from other movies into something exciting that at least feels fresh, the makers of this jumbled mess of clichés from better movies only produced a bland concoction with a bad aftertaste.

This cannot be pinned on one faulty element in particular, as the lazy script by D.J. Caruso and Wenthworth MIller, Caruso's uninspired direction and the extremely messy editing all carry a big part of the blame for why this movie feels so disjointed and meaningless. It is no secret that big chunks of the movie were edited out (explaining a meager running time of 91 minutes), and it shows. The story sets up several plot points that are simply abandoned later in the movie: for example, there is a subplot featuring a boy, a cat and a big dog that is solely used for cheap shocks and manipulated emotion, because it plays no role in the resolution of the story whatsoever.

All that happens seems to be in service of predictable scenes that aren't tense or suspenseful, since they lack a steady hand in direction, and everything can be seen coming from miles away. It all culminates in a ridiculous dinner scene that should have been the pay-off from previously established emotions and storylines, but since so much information and character development seems missing, it fails miserably. And it is topped only by a 'finale' that is so laughably weak, abrupt and unsatisfying that it gives new meaning to the term 'anti-climax'. As if writers and director couldn't come up with a good ending, so they didn't bother to write one, and just skipped to the end credits.

Kate Beckinsale is at the center of the story, and at least she does a decent effort to keep the viewers interested, something which can't be said of Mel Raido as David, whose wooden performance almost resembles an alien trying to do an impression of a human. Lucas Till's only reason for being here seems to create unease, and he also disappears from the story before he can do something meaningful. If there is some praise, it goes to the photography and the music, which both give the movie some edge over other B-horror movies.

Really a missed opportunity for D.J. Caruso, who has shown with Taking Lives and Disturbia that he could make a suspenseful movie.

Oh yeah, we know the type. September and January releases are generally known as movie dump months, after a busy period of cinema releases. A lot of the films released in this time period are films studios just needed to stick in to release. Generally these films are not good. The Disappointments Room does not go against the mold. After I watched the film I was kind of hoping I didn't as it pretty much offered nothing worthwhile during its entire duration.

The film is about a mother (played by the lovely Kate Beckinsale), her son and husband who move into a house where creepy occurrences take hold. She soon discovers a "disappointments room" in the attic where children with special needs or deformities were locked up. The spirits of the past start haunting her and she has a hard time separating reality from this new world she unlocked. Its a typical horror premise. Can I even call this horror? There isn't one scare in the film. Nothing that will stay with you. There aren't even any jump scares. In this day and age you'd expect something startling from a horror film but nothing really ever comes. As the film progresses you want to stomach less and less of it. If you've seen as many horror films as I have, you want something original, ambitious, or frighteningly entertaining. Unfortunately, this rarely happens.

I love Kate Beckinsale. She's an ageless beauty who I love watching on screen. I'd say she's the only reason you'd want to check this film out. She needs to pick better stuff for herself. She's been in some bad stuff but shes just wasted here. The guy who played her husband seemed like a caricature, his line delivery seemed so forced. He was basically the prototypical husband who doesn't see whats going on. Lucas Till was an entirely useless and creepy in the wrong kind of way character. I don't like the idea for the film but there could have been better delivery. Wish-washy editing of a bunch of "scary" images jumbled together is not enough to be memorable.

I know its my fault for getting sucked into this (damn you sexy Kate Beckinsale!) but as an avid film lover I'm always willing to give everything a chance in search of finding an inspired work. There's no inspiration here. Just a tired picture filled with nothing essential. You'll find scarier things in your day to day life than this mediocre effort. Skip it. There's too many puns I can do with the title of this film to convey how bad it is but I'll save you all the torture.

4/10

"The Disappointments Room" follows an architect (Kate Beckinsale) reeling from a family tragedy who moves into a remote mansion in upstate New York with her husband and young son to restore it. She uncovers a hidden room in the house that does not appear on the floor plans, and begins experiencing increasingly disorienting visions of the home's original owners.

I have to admit that I was fairly excited by the trailers for this film; it promised nothing groundbreaking, but appeared by all accounts to be an at least entertaining Gothic throwback—and I'd assume the script would lead one to a similar assumption, but the film unfortunately is something of a self-sabotaging effort.

It starts out briskly and glides through the typical haunted house fare—family arrives at old mansion, wife notices strange things immediately off the bat; she may be unstable, or the husband may be oblivious; the child is in imminent danger. These tropes are thrown at the audience in succession throughout the first act of the film; enter the second half, and the film seems to turn on its head. The plot regarding the history of the secret room and the apparent spirits in the house is sidelined, and suddenly the film becomes an anemic psychological study of a broken woman. The intrigue—or at least what little there was of it—for all purposes disappears.

The last forty minutes of the film especially are marked by awkward, amateurish editing choices that break any sense of flow, and a frankly ho-hum performance from Beckinsale. This isn't to say she's a bad actress, but she certainly seems bored here. The husband character is essentially useless in the film, and Lucas Till comes in as a sexualized handyman in the last thirty minutes, far too late to introduce a character that is apparently supposed to have some significance to the plot. By the end of the film, I was wondering where the narrative was attempting to take me—through the journey of a traumatized woman? Through a family that's falling apart? Through a haunted house? I still don't quite know, as the film fails to commit to any of the above in a genuine way. The last scene ties things together in a neat package, but there is no sense of relief or catharsis.

Overall, "The Disappointments Room" was a letdown (yes, I'm going to avoid the pun). In spite of the wonky editing, bad pacing, and general lack of narrative direction, the worst part of it all was that I honestly feel there is a good film somewhere in here; not an innovative one, or even a great one, but at least a good one— one that is capable of delivering a straightforward Gothic horror story without imploding on itself. One of the few things the film gets right is the atmosphere, and its most noteworthy scene comes at the end in the form of a disturbing Victorian-era flashback. Aside from that, "The Disappointments Room" is a lost opportunity. 4/10.