The chilling
tale of Dr. Joyce Reardon, an obsessed psychology professor who commissions
a team of psychics and a gifted 15-year-old autistic girl, Annie Wheaton,
to literally wake up a supposedly dormant haunted mansion - Rose Red. Their efforts unleash myriad spirits and uncover horrifying secrets of
the generations who have lived and died there.
"Houses are alive. If we're quiet... if we listen... we can hear houses breath. We say haunted... but we mean the house has gone insane."
- Dr. Joyce Reardon |
From reading Stephen King's Danse Macabre I saw what a passion Stephen
King had for the haunted house premise in horror fiction. If one watches The
Shining you may think he already did his haunted house story (after
all what is a hotel?), however, the book is a much different creature that
goes beyond cabin fever, telepathy and diving into insanity. After 26 years
of scaring America the Master of Horror has found its home and it is Rose
Red.
After Storm of the Century one could hardly hope for a more ghastly
tale to grace the small screen but Stephen King outdid himself again. In
the first chapter of the tale dread sets while we learn the histories of
all our participants and invariably side with Dr. Joyce Reardon, superbly
played by Nancy Travis, having only seen her in sitcoms I was truly in
awe of her performance it was one of many which left me spellbound in this
film. The second chapter is two hours of gut wrenching taut tension and
the end neatly closes up King's tale in one of the finest climaxes he's
ever written either in prose or for the screen.
Craig R. Baxley showed that Storm of the Century was no fluke. His
combination of slow pans, lightning, fast zooms, skewed angles and pretty
much the entire mise-en-scene of the piece added to what was already an
amazing tale. His directing paired with Gary Chang's chillingly masterful
score add to create an atmosphere that is absolutely intoxicating. Along
with Nancy Travis another notably brilliant performance was that of Matt
Ross as Emery Waterman. Ross completely immersed himself in the part and
played King's best pest to date. David Dukes who played Miller was also
fantastic and who sadly lost his life after completing this project was
wonderful and I also congratulate the producres for not pulling any punches
with his character but merely dedicating the entire mini-series to his
memory. The colorful interplay of the ensemble characters rival if not
surpass his best multi-character works (It, Needful Things, Desperation).
This film also boasts some of the best and most convincing CGI i've seen
to date. It was supernatural only when need be other than that it looked
utterly convincing and frightening. Another thing that resonates after
watching Rose Red is that this is indeed one of his nastiest collection
of characters not since The Stand did he even come close to having
a contingent of nasty characters such as this but even still they are all
likeable in at least one way or another. The undertones of religion and
evil hit home harder than ever before. I'm not going to give anything away
but if you analyze it you won't find clear cut good guys and clear cut
bad guys.
Stephen King has delivered one of the most bone-chilling suspenseful mini-series
of all time. The format seems truly to have been created for his work.
In Rose Red, Stephen King invites us to dance the Danse Macabre.
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- Although
the story originally took place in California, it was moved to Seattle
to take advantage of the locations.
- The
series is loosely based on Sarah Winchester and The Winchester "Mystery"
House.
- According to Stephen King, Steven Spielberg wanted to do the scariest
"haunted house" movie and asked him to write the story. By the time he
was able to write it, Spielberg had moved on to other projects. The film
was made as another of King's mini-series projects for the ABC television
network.
- Stephen
King has a cameo as the pizza guy in the second episode.
- David
Dukes died of a heart attack while he was playing tennis on the set.
- The raining stones and telekinetic girl named Annie are both directly
from the novel Carrie.
- Rose
Red has many qualities found in The Shining. A large, haunted building
with a rich history that taps into the powers of those who enter it.
- Craig Baxley, Stunt Coordinator, took David Dukes place for his zombie
scenes wearing the life mask created for Dukes.
- The glass floor in one of Rose Red's rooms references the early
short story The Glass Floor by Stephen King.
- Actor Matt Ross had to gain weight for the roll of Emery; he also
had to wear a fat suit on top of that.
- The
gruesome arm that came out of Emery's refrigerator belonged to Aidan Kennedy,
one of the production assistants.
