Dream House Review

There are a lot of different ways to fuck up a movie.  The single most effective way I’ve seen is when you remove creative control of a film from its director and put it in the hands of some studio scrooge that isn’t so much a filmmaker as he is a businessman.  That’s exactly the case of what happened with Dream House and the results are what you would expect… terrible.

When does shooting of the new James Bond film begin?

Our film begins with Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) resigning from his job and heading home to see his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz) and his two daughters.  Libby and the girls are ecstatic to have their husband/father home full time as they fix up their “dream house” (see what I did there?).  As you may of guessed their “dream” house” (did it again) turns into something of a nightmare as Will, Libby, and girls find out that they’re living in a home where three gruesome murders took place.  The family also believe they’re being watched and the town’s residents are reluctant to come forward with details as to what happened that led to the previous occupant’s death inside the home.  Will begins to investigate what happened at the home and soon discover’s not everything is what it appears to be.

I would say that anyone over the age of 13 is probably going to figure out this film rather quickly.  Dream House borrows from a lot of different films (telling you which ones would ruin the “surprise”) but unfortunately doesn’t improve on any of the ideas or concepts of the originals.  To be fair, the trailer for this film was extremely poor and gave away at least half of the film’s surprise twist.  That certainly doesn’t help the pacing of an already bad film when you can see what’s coming from a mile away.  I’m going to toot my own horn a little bit and say that even if the abysmal trailer wouldn’t have given the twist away I would have figured out Dream House early on… it’s pretty elementary.  Dream House is like a long, live-action version of Scooby Doo without the reefer references and talking dog.  What I mean by that is if you remove the one (or two) characters that seem to have no obvious bearing on the plot, they in evidently turn out to be the key.  Try as it might Dream House can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a supernatural thriller, a horror movie, or something else entirely.  I actually feel embarrassed for Jim Sheridan who has made some extraordinary films.  He and the film’s producers had a rocky relationship on set and the producers were unhappy with the initial cut of the film and had him removed and the remaining editing was done in his absence.  That explains why he hasn’t been promoting the film and I’m a little surprised he didn’t have his name removed and have it credited to Alan Smithee.  Daniel Craig and Rachel Wiesz were so upset with the final version of the film they have abstained from the promotional circuit as well.  This is the second time Daniel Craig has starred in a film that has been taken away from the original director and re-worked, the first being 2007′s Invasion with Nicole Kidman.

Both of these children look delicious!

I’m a Daniel Craig fan; I’ve liked him since before he took over the role of James Bond but he comes off as unintentionally creepy in Dream House.  Whenever he’s around his children it’s so awkward and downright scary.  Does it stem from him mostly appearing in films without children?  I hope so because if he acts that way in real life with kids they’re going to be traumatized.  The two women stars aren’t really given much to do aside from look worried and make dinner.  We’re then left with Elias Koteas and Marton Csokas… what could they be up to?  Dream House is a great example of having a very good cast of actors and actresses that combine to make the perfect storm of awful films.

Look worried? CHECK.  Make Dinner? CHECK.

We may never know if Dream House could have been a decent film.  As it stands it’s a big goddamn mess with a recycled plot that limps through, flat performances including Craig as the unsettling father, and in the end, is a film that suffers from an identity crisis of it’s own.  It’s really unfortunate that a film with such a wonderfully talented director and a normally surefire cast can turn in such a pile of shit.  As I mentioned earlier Sheridan was removed from the project but I don’t know if that in the end made the difference between this being a winner or the goat it turned out to be.

Avoid this mess.