This is a classic haunted house plot line executed with quite some style. Four people are sent to a spooky mansion to determine whether the afterlife exists – if they spend a week there they’ll each be rewarded with \u00a3100,000. The group consists of a psychic investigator and his wife plus two mediums, one of whom barely escaped the house with his life 20 years previously.<\/p>\n
The tale unfolds in a cliched way – fog, leering statues and a malevolent cat, but it’s tempered by a minimalist edge. There’s little music and when it is used, it’s very effective (in a similar vein to Philip Kaufman’s 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.) We’re given the time and date at the start of some scenes, as if it’s a scientific journal of events or a documentary. The cinematography is perfect with judicious use of unusual angles and lenses to create a surreal off beat effect.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this film doesn’t quite reach the heights of other classics like ‘The Wicker Man’, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers,’ ‘The Haunting’ or ‘The Others’ because of it’s ending. I won’t spoil it here but suffice it to say that it’s unsatisfactory. It could have been fine if clues had been given throughout the movie – perhaps flashbacks to the tormented life of Belasco to help us understand the suffering and eventual madness he went through. As it stands, it seems pretty lame which is a shame as the rest of the movie is almost perfect.
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