This mini-series follows professor Reardon (Nancy Travis), as she visits an ancient mansion (the titular Rose Red, which is infamous for being haunted) with a group of psychics, hoping to trigger paranormal phenomena and study them. Since this was written by Stephen King, it goes without saying the group is soon trapped inside and people start dying.
Character development is decent - at least one can tell those people apart and understand their flaws and motivations. I also appreciated how the final survivors are difficult to predict. Giving the house some backstory, and therefore more depth than the usual "It's haunted!" stuff, was also an interesting idea, although it's not entirely successful. Acting is serviceable; Travis seems terrible at first but then her performance starts to make sense (her professor turns out to be an unusual protagonist, both unsavory and quite bonkers).
Sadly, the location is not creepy enough. Sure, the house is surrounded by a park, but it's still inside a city. Seeing the street traffic from the windows of Rose Red is very distracting and spoils the atmosphere: imagine a version of The Shining with people skiing right outside the Overlook Hotel. Now, it's possible to make an effective horror in an urban setting (The Ring), but not with the Gothic premise of a haunted house, which thrives on isolation.
Also, too often characters behave like morons, shattering suspension of disbelief into tiny pieces - like the middle-aged, mild-mannered woman visiting the kitchen alone to fetch some tea after GHOSTS HAVE STARTED KILLING PEOPLE. From someone like the King of horror, these shortcuts feel rather lazy.
6,5/10
Character development is decent - at least one can tell those people apart and understand their flaws and motivations. I also appreciated how the final survivors are difficult to predict. Giving the house some backstory, and therefore more depth than the usual "It's haunted!" stuff, was also an interesting idea, although it's not entirely successful. Acting is serviceable; Travis seems terrible at first but then her performance starts to make sense (her professor turns out to be an unusual protagonist, both unsavory and quite bonkers).
Sadly, the location is not creepy enough. Sure, the house is surrounded by a park, but it's still inside a city. Seeing the street traffic from the windows of Rose Red is very distracting and spoils the atmosphere: imagine a version of The Shining with people skiing right outside the Overlook Hotel. Now, it's possible to make an effective horror in an urban setting (The Ring), but not with the Gothic premise of a haunted house, which thrives on isolation.
Also, too often characters behave like morons, shattering suspension of disbelief into tiny pieces - like the middle-aged, mild-mannered woman visiting the kitchen alone to fetch some tea after GHOSTS HAVE STARTED KILLING PEOPLE. From someone like the King of horror, these shortcuts feel rather lazy.
6,5/10