The House on Mansfield Street

The Idiot Plot Definition Originated by SF author James Blish and popularized by film critic Roger Ebert during his review of the remake of Narrow Margin, this trope is a term for a Plot that hangs together only because the main characters behave like idiots.

This perfectly fits this movie. It had some effective moments but the main character is such an idiot that you can't take it seriously.

The movie is about a Nick a man who moves from London to the outskirts to start a new life. He's a documentary filmmaker and is filming his move into a new cottage. And per usual things get creepy. The only other character in the film is his neighbor Emma who gives him a "good luck " charm as a welcome to the neighborhood gift. As the film progresses Nick finds strange things happening in the house and things intensifies throughout the film.

The main problem is Nick. He's a complete moron. He's constantly saying his mind is playing tricks on him but he has the activity on film. He never calls the police, or leaves the house. And the dumbest thing is no matter what insanity is happening it's like he has a bed time and has to go to bed every night no matter what is happening in his house.

The acting is not bad and as a found footage film it works well at times but he's just so stupid!!!

At only 77 minutes It's worth a watch but just remember if Nick wasn't a total idiot the film would be 17 minutes long.

THE HOUSE ON MANSFIELD tells a simple story: Nick has just moved to the Nottingham/Sherwood area and soon after he begins to increasingly notice strange phenomena in his cottage. Might his neighbor Emma have something to do with this?

Fans of slow-burn found footage movies might actually like this. But essentially remaking PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007) failed to impress me. There was a bit of innovation with the extensive use of split screens, but because they were not used for any discernible purpose, it fell flat. Cinematic devices are only effective if they are used in the service of a well-chosen purpose.

To give an example, one effective use of the split screen could have been to increase the creep factor: say, he is investigating noises, and one split screen shows what he sees and the other shows his face. The next moment, the first split screen shows something that captures his and our attention in front of him, while the other split screen shows a threat slowly approaching him from behind. We see it, but he doesn't. This would be the found footage version of the trope of approaching danger missed by the unaware character.

This is a slow-paced movie, and especially in the first half, the pace is glacial. The second half picks up a little, but not much. The protagonist is so dismissive of the obvious paranormal events which he not only witnesses but actually records on his camera that it starts to become annoyingly unrealistic. Most people would freak out way before he does. He also seems strangely passive in the face of an increasingly menacing threat. As a character, he is drawn neither realistically nor well.

Another shortcoming to me was that the story did not even use any local legend; I would have thought that the area, famous for Robin Hood and medieval history, would have been a rich source, and these could have helped, for example, with building atmosphere and making sense out of why the events in the movie occur.

There is a small twist at the very end, but it leaves you pretty much just as baffled as before. Without a mythology, explanation, rhyme or reason, it is very hard to make a good or at least satisfying found footage horror movie.

The director evidently created a series of these "Haunted in Sherwood" movies, which I have not seen. By cross-referencing them to each other, he could build up a universe with its own mythology, and thereby avoid one substantial lack of this movie.

I knew from the start it wouldn't be a masterpiece. This movie looked like another copy of Paranormal Activity and that's exactly what it was, which I have to admit, is one of my guilty pleasures.

Contrary to all the bad reviews, I think it's actually not that bad. Acting is decent, so is directing. The only problem is the story, it starts well and there are a few good ideas along the way, but it lacks refinement and the ending is disappointing. The author should have spent more time on the script.

That being said, making that movie with only a few hundred pounds and basically no one is pretty impressive. It may look easy but it's not.

Seriously, who was the idiot that decided showing half the movie In split/tri screen was a good idea? It wasn't. Not only is the movie bad, but the story is stupid the main actor is terrible. Please for the sake of the art, don't ever try making a movie again.

-2 Boring but short thankfully.

-1 Ending is no payoff. Story is silly and not original at all.