Note: There are likely to be all kinds of spoilers in here, so proceed with caution.
There's sort of an interesting movie in here, but I'm not entirely sure what they were thinking. The basic "Let's use the haunted house as a metaphor for personal trauma, specifically death of child and Vietnam experiences" concept makes sense (though I'd say that combining the two is, perhaps, overkill), but the overall semi-comic tone of the film seems to undercut the intention, as does, arguably, the decision to make the house actually haunted (instead of being solely a product of mind). Still, I sort of get what they were going for until the end. The whole introduction of the dead kid felt a little odd (in that it was never exactly clear what people, other than the protagonist, thought happened to the kid - did he just go missing?), and then allowing him to be physically rescued seemed like a pretty direct refutation of the "house as metaphor for internal conflict." Maybe I just wanted this to be a different film than it was.
Viewed on Sunday, October 05, 2008. 0 Comments