Haunted house movie creaks along like the floorboards

The Disappointments Room Running time: 1hr 32min Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Mel Raido, Lucas Till, Duncan Joiner ONE can see what might have attracted Kate Beckinsale to the project (aside from a cheque).

She plays Dana, a woman still recovering from the death of a baby daughter when her husband suggests that it would be good for her and their young son if they sought a change of scenery and moved to a deserted old house in the country.

That is never a good idea, at least in schlock movies; you can be sure that disaster is lurking in the musty attic. No doubt the actress saw an opportunity to explore the psychology of grief, and she gives a compelling performance in scenes of mental anguish.

Unfortunately, the script by director DJ Caruso (Eagle Eye and Disturbia) and actor Wentworth Miller never go beyond a routine haunted house scenario.

The film gets its title from an apparently authentic bit of historical lore, whereby physically or mentally impaired children were sometimes locked away from public view in “disappointments rooms”. Needless to say, these abandoned children are not going to rest quietly, and the grim history of this troubled house intersects with Dana’s psychological fragility to endanger her and her family.

A hash of films like The Haunting, The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist (which is even referenced), the movie tries to upgrade its pedigree with a brief excerpt from the Orson Welles version of Jane Eyre, a classic tale of an undesirable person locked in an attic and wreaking havoc on the downstairs tenants. But there simply isn’t enough freshness in the script to warrant another journey inside a dark old house.

Caruso’s direction is slick and fluid enough, and gifted cinematographer Rogier Stoffers (Quills, School of Rock) makes the most of the house’s dark, eerie corners. But the performances are highly variable.

Beckinsale delivers the goods, but Mel Raido as her impatient husband David never generates much sympathy. When Dana begins a flirtation with a cocky handyman (smooth Lucas Till), we begin to hope he might rescue her from the phlegmatic David, and that can’t have been the intention.

The film never generates any real suspense, and the ending seems particularly anticlimactic.