- Directed by D.J. Caruso
- Written by Wentworth Miller, D.J. Caruso
- Stars Kate Beckinsale, Mel Raido, Duncan Joiner
- Run Time: 1 hour, 31 Minutes.
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtYr1C4fzhA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a slow burn that smoldered, and then it was over. It’s a case of a mediocre script happening to good people. It has a great setting, a talented cast with chemistry, and realistic special effects. It just fails to launch.
Synopsis
Dana, David, and Lucas drive down the road and sing as they go— credits roll.
Night falls, and it’s raining; they’re still driving, wondering if they’ll ever arrive. They eventually get to an old, dark house on a dark, stormy night. Great start, right? They all want a fresh, new start in their new home. That night, as they all sleep, Dana hears a child crying, and it’s not hers.
The following day, Dana overhears Lucas playing with a cat that came with the house. Dana explores the grounds, photographing the many ruins and damaged buildings they now own. They go into town, and Marti, the woman at the ice cream store, is ridiculously overcome with joy that someone will finally live in that old house.
Dana and Lucas see a scary dog in the backyard that’s always gone when they look a second time. That night, Dana encounters more weirdness in the garden and the house’s tower room. She finds a large wardrobe upstairs, and there’s a secret door behind it with a locked door. We see someone in there, but they don’t. David suggests calling the doctor because Dana looks upset.
Dana gets some old photos of the house in the mail, and one of them contains an old man and a dog just like the one we’ve been seeing.
Dana finds the key to the hidden door and goes in. She almost immediately locked inside. She freaks out and then goes to sleep until nightfall. A ghost appears and says, “He doesn’t want you here,” and then the door opens in the morning. She goes downstairs and argues with David about who locked the door. They didn’t, and he seems to think she wasn’t gone for an unusual amount of time. He asks if she’s having trouble sleeping, and Lucas asks her if she’s getting sick again.
We see that Dana and David had another baby, Catherine, who clearly isn’t with them anymore. Ben arrives, a local man who offers to help them with repairs. Dana doesn’t like him, but David’s all in on getting more help. Dana finds an old newspaper article about Judge Blacker’s daughter’s death way back in the day. Dana decides she wants to move out, but David straightens her out.
Dana goes to the library and talks to Ms. Judith, an old woman who knows everything about the town. “Dana, it sounds like you have a disappointments room. When children who were born with certain difficulties were considered embarrassing, sometimes it was decided to keep that child’s very existence a secret.” These children were prisoners in that room for their entire lives. David goes to town for a few days, and Ben latches onto the idea that Dana’s going to be alone every night. He has ideas, but she soon shuts him down.
We get a deformed-children montage as Dana reads up on secret rooms. Lucas and Dana see a girl in a yellow dress up in their room. Dana watches as the dog tears Lucas apart, but then it’s just her imagination. Then she does find the cat, torn apart. She tells Ben to dig up and check out an old grave she found on the property—it’s just an animal, right?
We flash back to Dana’s past suicide attempt and then we see David talking to a psychiatrist in town in the present. He thinks she’s regressing since Catherine’s birthday was just this week. Dana is not taking her meds.
Ben digs up the grave, but the old, dead judge whacks him with a shovel. Dana finds the grave and cries, and then she finds Ben hanging from a tree. Meanwhile, friends Jules and Teddy come to dinner. Dana goes up to the disappointments room and “sees” the girl’s mother kiss her goodbye before the judge beats her to death with a hammer. “We have allowed this curse to linger too long.”
The judge looks at Dana and whispers, “You are a miserable mother, and you will fail again. A daughter, and now a dead son.” David gets locked out while the judge tries to smother Lucas with a pillow. Dana whacks the judge repeatedly with a hammer until he’s a bloody mess. David rushes in and rescues Lucas… from Dana. There’s no judge there. He obviously thinks she’s crazy. We get a flashback to how Catherine died, and she still blames herself.
David says they all need to just leave the place and go home.
Commentary
The title alone begs for a bad review. It, um, didn’t disappoint. The title, I mean. The movie sure did.
Does every horror film need to alternate between real supernatural things and someone not taking their meds? Or is everyone on meds, and I’m out of the loop?
The ending is upper abrupt—I fully expected another act or some kind of climax, since there wasn’t one. It was a slow burn that never burned; it fizzled out about when the opening credits rolled. On the plus side, it did live up to its name.