Who payed the critics

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Back in the day movie houses always had hidden rooms and staircases the better to serve the villain's nefarious ends. A house that's being put up for sale has one of those and a staircase. It also has a peephole into the bedroom for voyeurs or for some blackmail photography. The place had an unsavory reputation.This all starts when Lori Loughlin's friend Janet Kidder borrows an antique statue for display in the house for buyers. To prove that there's no such thing as evil spirits haunting the place she has herself videotaped sleeping at the place. Kidder is the listed real estate agent and there's a lot of money riding on this for her. But it turns out her life was riding on it as well.No one can figure it out, she's just dead. But Loughlin is fortunate to have a computer nerd son who helps immensely. But in discovering the how, she forgot the who.Two things bothered me with this one. Forensics should have been able to find something and the 'souvenir' the perpetrator kept of the killing was the final nail on that coffin. Not one of the better Hallmark mysteries.

Adrian is showing a house and borrows a figurine from her friend Jennifer's antique store. The open house goes well and there are three buyers, but suddenly a story appears about the house having a cursed room and good-bye buyers. Adrian is seeing her commission disappear, so she decides to spend a night sleeping in the cursed room while broadcasting a live webcast. Unfortunately (big surprise), she is found dead the next morning. The local coroner rules it's an accidental death but . . . . And we have suspects: even though the house had been completely refurbished by Erica, there is Donald Lennox who wanted to rip it down and put up an apartment house; another contender, Peter, who was a one time friend but now is a competitor, is jealous as he didn't get the listing; and a relative of the original family, William Carson, who is now into online gambling, wants the house back in his family; almost forget—Adrian has a sister, Tina, who could care less her sister died and is looking to make a buck by selling off the furnishings. Oh, and Tina is in a "relationship" with— wait for it—William Carson. Well it doesn't take Jennifer long to know something is wrong, and as she prowls about the murder house, she finds a secret room and staircase that Erica knew existed but failed to mention. And Jennifer found a clue on the hidden stairway that might indicate Adrian had been injected with something that killed her while she slept. Erica is now moved to suspect. But Adrian was on a live webcast, so how and who injected her? The only ally is geeky Peter who keeps offering up one impossible scenario after another. Well not completely true because Jennifer's son Logan is a computer nerd who can do things many forensic computer experts would admire, including help mom solve the case. Oh, and there is a very lame subplot about Jennifer trying to fix up her son, Logan, on a date for a girl ask boy dance. Lame, as Logan is a "hunk," and the girl who is interested is a skate boarding, tomboyish, no make up wearing possible ugly duckling. No mystery how this will turn out: Hallmark Channel after all.