CineBad!!!

In this film, Liam Neeson plays Dr. David Marrow, a scientist investigating reactions to fear. He brings 3 people to Hill House, a creepy, gothic mansion, to test his theories. They think they’re there to participate in a study of insomnia. The result is basically a Scooby-Doo episode with a lot of neat-o special effects. The house turns out to be haunted, and people get scared by ghosts and run around yelling and screaming a lot. Where are the Scooby Snacks?

The film focuses on Nell (Taylor,) a woman who has taken care of her ailing mother for the past 11 years. I love Lili Taylor. I think she’s one of the coolest actresses out there, and one of the best things about this movie is that she doesn’t scream. She yells. Even when she is being attacked by her giant gothic bed, she doesn’t shriek in the manner of most victimized females of film.

Anyway, during the course of the film, Nell discovers that her great, great grandmother was the wife of the guy who’s haunting the house. In a fit of cheesiness, Nell even calls him “Grandpa” as she yells at him in the final showdown, before she banishes his spirit to Hell. This was the scene of the film that was the most cheese- laden. Don’t miss the Christ imagery!

OK, so the plot of this film was kind of tired. However, I really enjoyed it! The acting was good, and the special effects were really awesome! I usually don’t go to movies just to be impressed by the special effects. However, the effects and all the scenery in general were pretty amazing. I want to move to Hill House. Never mind the fact that, even though it was built 130 years ago, it has perfectly installed electric lighting (though the lightbulb was invented a mere 120 years ago this year). The sets of the house were so amazing the house itself should actually have been billed as the star!

I used to blame the fact that I get confused easily in movies on a general lowering of standards on the part of the movie industry. Why are so many movies confusing? Am I just dense? Maybe you can explain how the wife of the guy who’s haunting the house could be the great, great grandmother of Nell, our protagonist (trivia question of the day: in what other movie did Liam Neeson star opposite a character named Nell?) when she never had any children who lived, and then committed suicide at an early age?

“Some houses are born bad,” is this movie’s tagline. My house is much badder than Hill House! OK, Hill House is pretty scary, but after a night in the trailer I rent, you’d be screaming for your life to leave as well. Oh, the answer to the trivia question is: Liam Neeson played opposite a character named Nell in “Nell.”