Review of Christina's House (2000) by Michael C — 16 Jan 2004

[b][font=Verdana][size=2]CHRISTINA'S HOUSE (1999).

[/b]**MAJOR SPOILERS**.

[u]THE GOOD:

[/u]--The movie has moments, though not enough to rescue it from the depths of horrible filmmaking. At times I enjoyed the brother/sister relationship and at times I liked Allison Lange, who was very beautiful.

[u]THE BAD:

[/u]--Dear God, who on the planet of Earth could actually give two craps about these lame characters? Christina was OK and so was Bobby, but that's only because the actors did their best, otherwise I hated everyone in this film. What the hell was up with that dodgy dad? Stop lifting up your daughter's skirt, you sick bastard! I don't know why the hell that was going on, it had no place in this movie at all and didn't result to anything. Brad Rowe is boring and his character is annoying, left to walk around saying things like "this house has a will of its own". Yah, go away. The essential Sheriff was nothing short of a nightmare, he was completely unrealistic and Jerry Wasserman should never get work again based on this terrible and massively exaggerated performance. And Christina's mate, though she was pretty hot, was so damn annoying! She thought she was Queen of everything, and the actress was obviously trying to steal the movie. All the characters in this movie, even those I liked to a very small extent (Christina and her brother) did stupid things (yes, keep walking out into the dark part of the forest where no one can see you) and pissed me off mucho.

--What the hell was actually the [i]story [/i]of this movie? To watch a girl lie in bed, get scared by noises in the attic, wake up to see something, run to Daddy, Daddy goes dodgy, all is well, repeat, repeat, repeat? I'll crucify myself if I'm the only person this planet who isn't impressed by the "story" of a girl hearing spooky noises in the attic.

--I have to seriously wonder if this film was made to be a horror movie. If so, they failed to the absolute max. In horror movies these days, you can't have the majority of the film having the deaths off-screen with just a neck-cracking sound. That just doesn't satisfy horror buffs! There was also not enough gore for my liking, and I'll reiterate the fact that there simply wasn't enough story!

--Before the writer/director team who made this terrible film decide to galloping about and making another direct-to-video, how about they tie up the loose ends to their OTHER movies first, such as this one? Could the writer actually think of no motive for the killings so they made up some garbage concerning the mother that was never properly resolved? It's OK to have some things not on the silver platter but it is ALWAYS necessary to explain WHY and HOW in slashers, and this one just didn't deliver at all! I think they tried to make the movie "scary" by having a "twist" at the end, but the twist doesn't make ANY sense at all therefore it isn't scary and has no place in the film!

--There was so much convenience in the film. The killer manages to be able to get anywhere they want, and once they become the killer are immediately invincible, nope, even stabs in the back don't work, and neither do punches in the face, even though they did earlier in the movie! Also, how the hell did the boyfriend character manage to show up anytime he wanted, anywhere? Isn't it wonderfully convenient how the policeman arrives AFTER the murders? What took him so damn long! Pah! Somebody shoot me!

--This movie was damn boring as HELL! The pacing was terrible, the direction effortless, with no interesting camera movements or anything, and I hated about 98% of the characters. I found the film to be so damn slow and it never caught my interest except for those small moments that make up its rating. Basically, I couldn't wait for the film to finish so I could come and write a review that damn slammed this piece of crap right in its face!

[u]RATING:

[/u]2/10 - Usually I have something good to say in the grand scheme of things for 2/10 films, such as "Jason Takes Manhattan", however with "Christina's House" the only things that make up the film are tiny little moments, that aren't even that great anyways! I consider this rating EXTREMELY generous as I really should be awarding the film 1/10, however, those moments have been taken into consideration and here's the payoff. A wonderful and VERY low 2/10 rating! Yay!

[u]IF YOU LIKED THIS MOVIE I RECOMMEND:

[/u]The Craft (8/10).

The Haunting (1/10).

House on Haunted Hill (2/10).

The Others (10/10).

Scream (10/10).

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