Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

When a relative passes, a man inherits her decrepit old mansion and coming to learn she believed it haunted sets out to prove it was simply a matter of unrecognizing everyday events around her unaware of a deadly secret lurking within its walls.This here turned out to be an incredibly dull and barely worthwhile entry. The main problem here, which just about ruins the film right off the bat, is the fact that the film's about a person's nature of being skeptical, a trait which means that every time something supposedly supernatural could happen it's always shot down as realistic instead of supernatural, a rather distressing fact made more damaging due to being presented as absolute fact with constant berating and mocking directed at those who think otherwise. This behavior, from the lead no less, makes it an almost unbearable act to get into the film from the beginning as being around such an irritating figure is hard to stand. That this is given to other characters, who each spend most of the time engaging in the same exact behavior throughout the entire film of making it attempt to be realistic rather than trying to emphasize the supernatural hauntings really makes the film's attempts at generating scares pretty worthless. The banging off-screen doors, whispering voices and moving objects to different locations that are being used for that purpose then don't mean anything when they occur since it's all pretty much ignored and explained, reducing their effectiveness long before how tame they are ruins the film in that manner, leaving this whole thing incredibly flawed with a damaging gimmick, lame scares and a boring pace which really kills off the few positive points it developed.Rated PG-13: Violence and Language.

For those of you that caught Tim Daly in the NBC hit Wings or in his role as the leader of the Branch Davidians in the made for TV movie of the week; do yourself a favor with your hour and twenty minutes of free time.... SKIP THIS PIECE OF HORSE BLEEP. Tom Arnold and the chick from Avatar are the lone bright spots in this horrible production. IFC should've never green lit this film. But of course if you are into predictable plot lines and shaky dialogue, then by all means this is the film for you. It also casts the guy from Richie Rich (they same dude that was the Dad in Gilmore Girls) yeah that guy as some Doctor who does stuff but doesn't reveal to Daly about other stuff and well you get the point.SKIP IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As this movie was all lead-up and no end, I'll aim to restore the cosmic balance by making this review essentially all end with no real lead-up. NOTE: this review is, in it's entirety, nothing but one big spoiler.The ending: I have no problem with the ambiguity of never truly knowing whether or not everything was in the main character's mind. Almost any story well-told involving an ambiguous ending is essentially a story that's relating a tale about a situation in which "no one was certain about which was true, thus, it remained somewhat of a mystery." It's interesting to present situations about individuals or perhaps societies involved being conflicted over the nature of truth or of their reality. (I give a pass to "The Sopranos" which was a story about "the nature of these people" thus an event-oriented conclusion being arguably less of the point. And I stress "arguably.")HOWEVER... being unclear about whether or not the final scene was actually portraying Tim Daly's character as dead versus in an unconscious haze is just plain sloppy film-making. It's not like part of the mystery was that no one in the story's scenario would ever know if the stair fall killed him or not. Either he was still alive and thus interacted with people at some point after the fall, or his body was found and a funeral was held. Just leaving that part unclear merely leaves the audience in the dark over the actual context of what the final scene was even referring to, something that would've been mundanely clear to everyone within the context of the story itself. Again, either they had a funeral for him after his body was found or they simply talked to him the next day at work. In lieu of this clarification, the film is essentially saying, "And after he fell down the stairs, it would forever remain a mystery from that day forward to all those he knew as to whether he died in the fall, or in fact, survived and saw many of them at work the next day." Clearly, this makes no sense within any context of telling a story. Thus, the presentation of this film isn't a case of telling a story with an ambiguous, mysterious finale. This is simply a case of starting to tell a story without bothering to fully go through the process of telling it. Why bother then? Either finish the assignment or spare wasting our time and don't turn it in. An even bigger shame since the premise was engaging and the acting very good.

Tim Daly stars as successful lawyer Bryan Becket, a very vocal non believer who doesn't adhere to any sort of religious philosophy, psychiatry, supernatural, or psychic phenomena(it also includes astrology and the belief in the Loch Ness monster). In short, Becket doesn't believe in anything other than what the senses tell us. This all changes, though, when he starts staying in his dead aunt's house, and the specter of a woman starts appearing(and whispering)to him.Tom Arnold is Daly's partner at their firm, Sully, often the butt of many jokes because he's the polar opposite of Becket..in short, he believes almost in everything. Estranged from a very good wife, Robin(Andrea Roth) who loves him and has tolerated a lot of unnecessary stress thanks to her "unemotional" husband, Becket uses his time(it's a good enough excuse)at the other house in an attempt to prepare for a big case coming up. But, the woman that keeps popping up distracts Becket from the task at hand. Becket has a lot of childhood baggage that he has kept buried from when he was five years old regarding his mother's death(she fell down a flight of steps down a stairwell), which could relate to what is currently "haunting" him. Robert Prosky is Father Wymond, the Priest of his aunt's Catholic church(she wasn't exactly a devout Catholic, though), and a good friend to atheist Becket who, while frowning upon religion of any kind, often enjoys chatting with him despite their differences. Edward Herrmann is Dr. Shepard, a shrink who worked with Becket when he was a kid and maybe knows more about Bryan's past than he is admitting. The sexy Zoe Saldana( pre-Star Trek stardom)has a supporting role as a psychic, Cassie, who helps Becket address the missing bits of his past, confronting those horrible memories that begin to surface. Bruce Altman is Dr. Warren Koven, a "sleep specialist" whose institute was actually listed on Becket's aunt's will to inherit the house Bryan covets..Becket goes to Koven, who doesn't believe in the supernatural, but applies science to the unexplained, in need of advice regarding what he is experiencing in the house.It was supposed to be a simple stay for a little while, sell off the valuable antiques and other properties, then the house itself, but, instead, Becket encounters far more than he could've imagined. We learn than Becket has been suffering sleep deprivation, not to mention, night terrors, reliving past memories without knowing it(Robin informs Bryan of this fact that he talks in his sleep, awakening in horror at the abuse from his mother). Solid cast in this ghost story where someone who has been shaped by the experiences of his past, must come face to face with that monster that has never truly left him. The ending, to me, is rather startling in how it concludes the "relationship" between mother and son. It seems that Becket is being tormented by his mom out of some sort of revenge for something he might've done, as if what she did to him as a child wasn't enough. Yet, the final reel actually goes in a completely different direction, and we see that mother had other plans all along.