Victim Of The Haunt (Telefilm)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C- Telefilm: C
Haunted House films are something that resurface once in a
while, yet they never seem to take hold for very long. Some of them have even been done as
effective telefilms, which begs the question as to why Steven Spielberg’s Something
Evil (1972) is his only film to never be issued on home video of any
sort. Victim Of The Haunt (1996)
is influenced by Spielberg’s later theatrical haunted house production, Poltergeist
(1984), but cannot seem to decide whether it wants to be that film, The
Sixth Sense, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind or a comedy. Had it chose comedy, this could have been a
surprise. Instead, it is a mess.
The Johnsons move into a new suburban home, but event he
real estate guy is not scape-goated as “shiny happy glowing” creatures show up
and smile, then kill. If only things
were that interesting. At first, partly
reflecting the budget, we get a brief flashback to how the place may have
become cursed, then the parents (Sharon Lawrence and Beau Bridges) bring their
children there after the happy purchase.
Unfortunately, happy does not stay so when things get strange and the
usual odd things start happening.
Instead of running away in horror knowing something is
wrong, they stay! That is always a
problem with such films, and we all know how Stanley Kubrick solved this in The
Shining (1980). Sunny suburbia is
just not as hard to escape as a mega snow blanket in winter, but Karen Clark’s
teleplay ignores that and tries to make this an all-woman’s haunted house film
with no success. Furthermore, director
Larry Shaw repeats everything we’ve seen before without anything new or
original to offer. That is a shame,
because Lawrence can do both comedy and drama with ease and has as certain “TV
Mom” credibility that could have made this a hoot. Too bad this does not work.
The full frame 1.33 X 1 image is above average at best,
looking clean and recently shot, but I could not tell if this was film or video
because the transfer does nothing otherwise to impress. The visual effects are limited and
unmemorable. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is
Stereo at best, and the extra are limited to text trivia, text facts, a TV
preview trailer and a few cast profiles.
It should also be noted that Shirley Knight plays a psychic and Alex P.
Linz plays one of the kids from the third Home Alone film. At least this makes for a wacky curio.
- Nicholas Sheffo
