The Remains

There was some over-acting from the medium at the start. Other than that, I was mainly glad to see that the children could act, and did a pretty good job of it. Child-actors who are not just skilled enough to create the suspension of disbelief, but also are interesting to watch must be either difficult to find, or too expensive for most film-makers' budgets.

Apart from that the movie built up, built up, and then... poof. It was over, without a creative surprise or unusual twist- anywhere. Summary: some creepy things happened, it got more tense with the creepy things building up, we are waiting for the big blowout which was more of a predictable letdown, and then it was over (except for me sitting there swearing about what a crappy movie I'd just watched).

I recommend the viewers out there skip this one. Read a book, wash your dog, rearrange the sweaters in your closet by colour. I wish someone had told me the same.

We don't agree with the harsh reviews of this movie. This is a haunted house flick, and having lived in a big old haunted Victorian, we thought they did a very realistic job of giving you the feeling of what that is like. It's not constant terror or horror, but lots of creepy, weird things happening that you are always trying to explain away (seeing figures, crashes in the attic, noises and voices). The seance was a good idea, as that was very popular during the Victorian times and they did good job of making it seem like it could be a hoax. Our frustration was with the thin story line about the haunting (what was going on with the original family, what happened to the girl, etc). You can make an educated guess, but revealing that story through the haunted chest in the attic would have been much more interesting and scary and would have led to a better ending which seemed rushed and hokey. We thought the characters were well rendered and believable, seemed like a real family, not saccharine where you root for them to get offed. This is one where it would be worth someone with better writing skills taking a shot at fleshing it out. Has the potential to be a really good scary movie. Seemed like the unscrupulous Realtor idea came from American Horror Story's first season. Now that was scary!

The first thing you notice is the film looks cheap, the special effects are shoddy, some of the costumes look like people dressed up for Halloween, and it's a story that's been done to death. Despite the negatives it's watchable enough.

Todd Lowe is rather good as the central character, the tormented father, not unlike a young Kenneth Brannagh.

Some decent scares, although just as the film starts to get into its groove, it comes to an end.

I wouldn't watch it again, but it was a decent watch.

So listen, the set design and style works and the basic premise is nothing special but it could work. The problem is there are many scenes that literally feel like the first take, as if actors are holding their script in their hands reading their lines out loud for the first time. It's rather painful at times and either they were short on time and could only do a couple takes, or the director needed a lot more experience directing actors. Some of the actors are in other projects and have performed much better so this really does fall onto director's responsibility. I don't recommend this movie.

This movie was so bad I felt the need to create a profile to review it.

The acting all around is terrible. The premise of the movie seems legit, but the actual script and delivery is way off.

It's hard to feel for this family when every one in it is an asshole. I hated the little girl just minutes into the movie and slowly grew to dislike the whole family. The older daughter is the typical angsty bitch, the son is obnoxious, and the younger daughter has resting bitch face and an attitude to match. The father is a stoic blob in each scene. If you can't like the characters, how can you like the movie? There is literally nothing in this movie that compels me to watch. I kind of felt like the subsequent haunting of this family is karma.

I couldn't finish this disaster. I normally love under rated B movies, but I couldn't find one redeeming thing about this one. Do yourself a favor, skip this one.