Review of Dream House (2011) by Armando C — 07 Mar 2012

I honestly feel critics were way off the mark on this one. I've read their reasons for down-rating the film.I watched the trailer, but vaguely, and all I had was a vague idea that this might be a haunted-house film.

I picked it up at Red Box without any expectations and because it was either this or Real Steel (which I had already seen parts of and honestly was laughably bad).I watched it first alone and loved the film.

Being a rather-new parent (4 year old and one more in the way) I completely empathized with Atenton/Ward and, after the mid-point on the movie when he's revealed to be Ward, I found myself wishing until the end of the movie he'd be innocent.

The pace was good, and the movie was very effective at first making you feel love for the perfect family, then fear for them if anything were to happen to them, and then the same despair and sadness of realizing that it was really the last-ditch effort of the mind of a man who had the perfect family and lost it to keep them with him, the top-notch cast makes sure of that.

If that doesn't make any other parents empathize, then I don't know what does.I showed the film to my wife, who had never even heard it mentioned nor seen the trailer, and she loved it too. I believe, then, that the culprit here for the film's bad reviews is that critics (and the actors and director themselves, from what I've read) were expecting a different type of film, maybe a horror-haunted-house film, and, if that's what you're expecting, ofcourse it won't deliver.

But not every movie has to be a director's desperate attempt at an artsy film, or an actor's hope of being in the hottest horror movie of the season. However, if you watch this film without any expectation and take it for what it is, then you'll find a very good story here.

Real steel?.... really?.....