Bruce Dern............Mr. Dudley

Marian Seldes............Mrs. Dudley

Alix Koromzay........Mary Lambetta

Todd Field..............Todd Hackett

Virginia Madsen.........Jane

Tom Irwin.........Lou

Charles Gunning........Hugh Crane

Hadley Eure..........Carolyn Crane

1999. Rated PG-13. Genre: Thriller, Horror; 112 minutes

"Some houses are born bad"

Nell Vance has learned some of the hard knocks of life and she is about to learn more. She has lived with her dying mother and nursed her until she died. Instead of her sister being thankful, she throws Nell out of the house. Nell sees an ad in the paper for subjects for a sleep disturbance subject. Dr. Marrow wants to take three subjects to Hill House and study fear and sleep. Nell arrives first and she has told to see Mrs. Dudley . They let her stay in the Red Room. Shortly after getting into her room, she meets Theo, another subject. Then they both meet the third subject, Luke Sanderson. Dr. Marrow brings all of them in knowing that he is studying fear and less about sleep disorders than the patients thought. At first, he is trying to scare them and does a good job. But there is something about the house. They talk about Hugh Crane, the former owner of the house. All of his children supposedly died and his wife committed suicide. He keeps telling them a little of the history of the house at a time to see how scared they actually get. Afterwards, none of them can sleep at night and they wander the floors of the old house. They hear strange noises which the doctor claims he never heard. Then things start appearing in the house. The painting of Crane is marred with "Welcome Home Eleanor" in bright red paint. She starts hearing children's voices in the house after that. They are calling out to her to help them. What really happened in Hill House and what is there that Dr. Marrow is not telling them?

I actually went and saw this film at the movies. It was pretty scary to see on the big screen. That was one thing I did like about it. There was very little gore and more story. Also you have to do a little detective work the whole time to figure out the connection between the house and one of the people inside of the house. It is a thinking movie and keeps going in that direction until the last twenty minutes or so. By this time, you know exactly what is going on.

For a while, my favorite character in this film was Luke. He added much needed comedy to this thriller. Although I could not identify with him that much. I in fact could identify more with Eleanor than I could him. As she took care of her mother, I bear much of the responsibility in my family when it comes to the differences between my sister and I. I could see my sister and me in Nell and her sister. Her sister had no right to kick her out yet did anyway just because she could.

I actually had many many favorite parts in this movie but I will only discuss a couple. The first is when they go to check out the fire place again and Luke loses his head. The other is when Eleanor is in bed and the giant metal spider looking thing comes out of the wall.

Overall, the whole movie is great. I hated that any of the subjects had to die but it was nessacery to the plot. The special effects were great and that more than made up for the movie's few downfalls.

I rate this movie: 9

Blyss