Looks like an interesting haunted house movie by SK. Apparently, the movie is based on an actual old mansion built on some ancient Indian burial ground. People who have entered the house have mysteriously disappeared or have been found dead.

I've Tivo'd all three nights. Begins tonight Sunday 7PM Central on ABC.

I'm looking forward to this one, especially the part where
Can someone post for sure what the nights and times are going to be? I want to be sure to record them all.

Sunday, Monday, and Thursday nights. ABC. 9-11PM.

I may start watching this.....but three nights??? His last made for TV movie that I watched(Storm of the Century) was released on dvd three months following it's television debut.

Yes, three nights. It's been done a few times before with a Sun, Mon, Thurs showing. It would be better to have them shown one night after another for better continuity.

Thoroughly unremarkable.

Didn't really even "read" like King. Sort of a pastiche of Carrie, The Shining, The Haunting of Hill House, House of Leaves, and, God help me, Ghostbusters. Most everything in this felt like I'd seen it somewhere before. All of the character actors in it didn't help, either. (Was that Les Nessman getting pelted by rocks?)

Uninspired acting pretty much all around, but then again, the actors weren't given much to work with. The only character that really stood out was Emery(sp?), the nerdy guy with the over-bearing mother. And even he was pretty much a stock character.

Stock characters. Oh, yes. The nerd. The obsessed professor. The mute girl. The quiet serious British guy. The pretty girl. The evil college dean. The smart-alec student reporter. The abusive father and the passive mother. The shy, inhibited housewife. The man with something to hide. The obvious first victim.

And oh, the cliches. Heavy-handed forshadowing. Ten years later. More heavy-handed foreshadowing. Psychic research is marginalized, but I'm going to change that.

At this point, I don't really care whether or not I watch parts two and three.

Not even sure why you watched the first part. I can't articulate how uninterested I am in this mini-series. Every indication is that it's the same tired story we've seen a hundred times.

das

Exactly...I didn't even bother with this one.

At first I thought it was a documentary about the Winchester Mystery House.

Okay, seriously, it wasn't that good, but it was watchable. It's not the best thing I've ever seen, and I'll at least watch part 2 -- it's not like there's anything else on Monday nights. Maybe it'll get better.

Is the Rose Red DVD going to be 1.78:1 with DTS EX?

Kidding. I wonder, though, if in today's world of DVD, if a made-for-tv movie might see a 1.78:1 release?

True that it is far from genre breaking it is solidly produced and features some decent actors. I also couldn't help but make the Winchester house connection seems to be the closest thing I have read about in real life. The history of the house and its inhabitants was handled well, showing Seattle at the turn of the century etc. The effects and music are good and I thought the editing in bring the beginning storyline together was handled well.

Standouts
Nancy Travis
Melanie Lynsky
Julian Sands
and Bill Gates as Ememry.
I will be watching and anxiously await the DVD with commentary by SK.

Of course, SK will only provide commentary for the first 30 minutes and the last 30 minutes.

I thought Bill Gates did as well here as he did in Shallow Grave with Ewan MacGregor, which is one of his better roles.

One thing about SK even in his novels is that he breaks everything into three parts...The first is the back story and character developement, the second is the meat of the story and the third is the clincher...I think this will be pretty good as long as you go in KNOWING that it is a homage to the Hill House with a little extra King thrown in for good measure.

I enjoyed the movie for what it is. Why do so many people seem to think because it's a miniseries it has to be the end all of entertainment, possibly the best thing to ever have been shown on TV, and set their expectation level that high? Chances are, since it's a miniseries it's going to be cheesey, derivative, and slightly goofy!

The movie is derivative of the haunted house films before it, and for that reason I found it pretty good. King has at least given props to Shirley Jackson and The Haunting of Hill House. The only thing I've found truly laughable about it so far is the haunted mansion plopped smack down in the middle of downtown Seattle.

While I'm sure I'll be rolling my eyes come Pt. 3 when it gets overly sentimental and predictable, I'm looking forward to Pt. 2.

I got what I expected out of part I. It just introduced all the characters, and the mythos of the house. The only thing that disappointed me was that the characters were pretty bland. I haven't found a reason to care about any of them yet. Hopefully the next 2 parts will have some more character development, otherwise, I'm not going to care who the house "eats."

I agree. And they were all straight out of "Introductory Scriptwriting 101" -- all of these characters were types, not individuals. (Unlike, say, Storm of the Century, which -- although it had flaws -- created characters that were 3-dimensional and I cared about.)

And the dialog is full of cliches from every one of these types of films...

It's pretty sad when we're hoping that the characters will be more fleshed out in later nights, when the ENTIRE first night was set up to be a character-building segment.


I told myself I'd give this one a chance, and I did. But I'm not going to bother with nights 2 and 3.

Stephen King= cliched characters? recylcled plots? boring setups? Say it isnt so?

I watched the last half hour/45 mins of it (from the part where all the researchers meet at the bar), and was pretty unimpressed. From the first few seconds I could tell the acting was going to be lacking overall, just people spouting their lines with false/unconvincing emotions (which seems to be a Julian Sands trademark- just phone it in, buddy)... I Married an Axe Murderer chick was really horrible... Then all the sudden I see Melanie Lynsky form Heavenly Creatures! Jeeez wheres she been? Whats it been six years since I saw her in anything?

May halfway tune in (Angel isnt on tonight), see what goes on, but it seems like a pretty big waste of time. It'll have to really grab me quick.

So how is Part 2 faring? I still need to watch Part 1.

Well, part 2 wasn't any better. Still no character development, and we know pretty much nothing about why the house is "bad." It's been 4 hrs (not counting commercials) and not a single interesting thing has happened. I guess I'll watch part 3 Thursday since I've already watched the first two, but I'm not expecting it to get any better. This is right up their with The Tommyknockers and The Langoliers as far as sucky Stephen King miniseries go. Barring a vast improvement in part 3, it will end up being worse than those two.

It wasn't that bad. I'm sure you'll find out at the end why all this stuff is happening. They've hinted that the one guy knows whats going on, but he's not saying. So we are obviously not meant to know yet.

Aside from crappy acting, its been a fairly good show so far in my opinion. It started to fall apart a bit at the end though, when it went into "When Houses Attack" mode. Hopefully it doesn't turn into the Haunting next show.

That Steven King cameo was extremely lame though. It felt like the only purpose of that scene was to somehow include him in the show.

that was the only purpose of the cameo - anyway lets all be fair, how many good mini-series have you ever seen? I can think of only two or maybe three that have even been decent - none that were great - compared with other mini-series that I've seen this one is just about mid-range, not the worst not the best

i didn't see it last night, but am watching tonights episode. it seems pretty lame. the only thing that was remotely creepy was when i was waiting for something creepy to happen, but the moment passed. was this written recently by king? it really doesn't seem like he put much thought into this one. but then again, when was the last time you saw anything scary on tv?

ok, they just had an interview with steve-o on the news. this in indeed a brand spanking new script penned by the horror master. he said, and i quote, "i want this series to be remembered as one of the great ones."

ouch.

It's not that bad. Sure, it's not that good, but it's kind of fun. I think zucchina's bug-eyes are pretty scary.

And we all know how it's going to end:

Again, I think too many people look at miniseries and try to hold them in a higher regard than they deserve. I don't know what sort of expectations the people deriding this movie have, other than they must be pretty high from the sounds of some of these posts. It's a cheesey movie, like all miniseries. Give it a break!

I've enjoyed it so far, it's been pretty good for a miniseries. Here's my predictions for the final night: