The Skeptic

I found this film in a pile of movies at a pawn shop near my house. As a fan of the IFC line of films, I decided to pick it up. This movie unfolds at a very good pace. Every scene seemed important and the entertainment did not die down once. This is a ghost story type of movie and honestly it kinda felt like a TV movie, but that just made for a warm feel. Fellas, it's a good movie to watch with your girlfriend, but don't expect blood and guts because its the uneasy type of scary that this films delivers. There should be more low key horror films like this. another title that's similar but a little upscale with the terror is "The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh". I highly recommend it if you liked "The Skeptic".

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.

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.

TIM DALY stars as a skeptical lawyer with no belief in the supernatural who moves into the house of a deceased aunt when his marriage breaks up. He soon believes that he's not alone in the creepy mansion and begins to doubt his sanity after some encounters of a ghostly kind that might just be happening in his head.

Before he knows it, he's getting assistance from a woman psychic (ZOE SALDANA) who tells him the house holds a grim secret. Gradually, we discover that the key to the haunting lies in his past, when he was subjected to harsh treatment at the age of five from a mother whose punishment makes "Mommie Dearest" look like "Snow White." So far, so good.

There are some nice shivery moments but we keep hoping for our hero to see the light and discover just what is going on. It takes a little too long to reach that conclusion and when it does, the ending is an unsatisfying letdown that leaves you jolted just as the end credits begin to unfold. That's it? Yes, an ambiguous and terribly disappointing and empty stone wall conclusion that provides more questions than answers.

Most viewers will feel cheated by the ending, after a fairly good case of goose pimples from a low key, rather tepid ghost story. In the central role of the lawyer, Tim Daly proves almost as adept at drama as he was in comedy roles. TOM ARNOLD, as a sympathetic colleague, has little to do but bark his lines in snappy fashion.