Undescribable Perfection

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Robert Mandel directed this TV movie adaptation of the reputedly true account of Jack & Janet Smurl(played by Jeffrey De Munn & Sally Kirkland) who moved into a newly renovated home with his parents and their children, only to discover that it is haunted by ghosts and a demonic spirit that increasingly terrorize them, causing them to seek help from their church, then paranormal investigators Ed & Lorraine Warren(played by Stephen Markle & Diane Baker) Things take a desperate turn after they contact the press... Mediocre film has a good cast and much potential, but suffers from unimaginative direction that squanders the few eerie scenes it can produce(like the "Janet?" scenes) Rambling plot that inexplicably drops characters(like the Warrens for instance) doesn't help matters either. Still not on DVD yet for some equally inexplicable reason, but is on YouTube. Compare this with the later film "The Conjuring" to see what I mean about direction!

Notice that I did not rate this movie a 1. Although the movie is not entertaining, the experience I had watching it was.About 30 minutes into the movie, I had my doubts about it. I was in a daze; confounded by the inconceivable character actions, silly dialog, and over-reactions to non-events and under-reactions to significant events. I wanted to turn it off. However, as I slung insults and random comments at the TV, my wife and kids started to laugh. They joined in, and we did enjoy each other's creative comments. We certainly had a number of laughs at the movie.After about a half-hour of that, it started to get old. We got bored with slinging comments, and started to realize how truly un-entertaining the movie itself was. We (the kids and I) finally gave up and went about more interesting business. My wife hung in there and finished it. She briefed me on the ending (in a disappointed and monotone voice).All that said, if the movie was made as part of an ad-hoc college film project, or otherwise put together by a group of friends, I would have to say it was reasonably well done. However, presuming it was written/produced by professionals, I really can't say it measures up.

I hate this family, all of them. Its like they were dressed like little house on the prarie but lived in the suburbs. I think the ghost lived in the fathers mustache. This is great bored weekend viewing. Its not scary at all, unless your 7 years old or something. Honestly, if I saw a big blob floating in my house I wouldn't be that scared, I'd just move and use the blob as a selling point. This has to be the most vapid family ever, they really look like a group of people that have never had fun, ever. This movie needed more sex and violence, considering its filled with every ghost movie cliché, its they least they could do. Oh well.

My boss is actually the niece of the Smurl famiy. Today at work the fact that it's 6/6/06 came up and we were discussing scary movies, and she mentioned that there was a book and movie about a haunted house in her family. She mentioned the name and I looked it up online and brought up the story here: http://www.warrens.net/smurl.htm We sat there and read it and she kept adding things to what that website said, about how she had also experienced weird things in the house as a child when she'd go to visit. She was listing off names before I even read them, and events before I read them- then when we looked at the pictures, she was telling us where rooms were, etc... so for any of you "non believers"- believe it, because it's a true story.