The Skeptic

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.

The movie is about a guy, Bryan Becket (played convincingly by Tim Daly) who, while going through the process of a divorce, moves into his recently deceased aunt's house. The house is soon to be turned over to a University Lab that does sleep studies and studies on paranormal and psychic phenomena. While staying at the house, Bryan becomes aware of strange incidents that allude to a haunting which ultimately entrenches him in a mystery surrounding the secrets of his "blocked" childhood.

What I liked about this movie is that it is very laid-back and down-to-earth in it's telling. The way the haunting unfolds in small but creepy events served to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. This movie doesn't rely on over-the-top haunting events, thank God, and that's what makes it all the more believable. It's simple but very eerie, the way a haunted house movie should be. I also really liked the characters. They were all unique and compelling people and the dialogue is witty and intelligent. Really worth spending 89 minutes of your life on.

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.