A look at the DVD of Stephen King's Rose Red

I didn't see the Stephen King television series, Rose Red, when it was first aired on ABC almost a decade ago. Though I'm anxious to see Bag of Bones, which will be on TV December 11th & 12th, I haven't enjoyed at least fifty percent of the stuff that's been done with King's short stories, novels, and original screenplays on television. There's just something about the major networks that destroys the essence of what makes his fiction so damn great. They offer the time for his stories to be told, but then place all kinds of rules and regulations of what can and can't be shown or even implied.

Watching Rose Red on DVD the other night proved to be somewhat enjoyable to me. Without the commercials every twelves minutes, the series is more entertaining, scary, and holds your interest through the slow periods of the script. It's hard to be scared when watching a TV movie when you're constantly interrupted every several minutes by commercials talking about Fords, asprin, and femininent protection. It's enough to make a preacher cuss.

Anyway, the story of Rose Red deals with the haunted mansion of that same name, and the group of people that go into it to investigate the pyschic phenomenom that's existed there for nearly a hundred years. This is somewhat reminiscent of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and Hell House by Richard Matheson. The group of scientists and psychics spend the holiday weekend inside the house, only to have most of them killed by Sunday afternoon. During the course of the weekend, you do find out about the history of the house as well as the weaknesses of each member in the research group. The house then plays on the weaknesses, luring most of the characters out by themselves where they encounter an evil surprise, and, of course, an unpleasant death.

For me, part of the movies enjoyment was in watching Nancy Travis play the professor who leads the group into the house for her own selfish motives. She plays the role with true excellence, being extremely nice one moment, and then smiling like a crazed banshee the next. She's also very easy on the eyes. I also tend to get her and John Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, mixed up a lot.

I have to say that Matt Ross as Emery Waterman and the lady who played his mother got on my nerves in a very serious way. I wish he'd been one of the group's members to die. His entire expression was one of petulance with his mouth hanging open, except when he was eating. I'm surprised the bees didn't fly into that large opened cavity for detailed investigation. He kept reminding me of the earlier veresion of Harold Lauder from The Stand. Last, his mom's mouth had me literally sticking my fingers into my ears to drown out her voice, praying someone or something would quickly dispatch her with extreme prejudice.

Julian Sands probably had the best role. He seemed calm and smart and didn't allow his emotions to show through when the psychic pressure of the house was amped up a hundred times. His gayness, however, kept popping out in little places. Still, he added a touch a class to the series.

The character of Annie Wheaton reminded me a lot of Carrie and the little girl from Firestarter, Charlie McGee. Anybody who can makes giant stones and rocks fall from the sky when pissed off is to be avoided at all cost in my little book of advice. The actress who played her, Kimberly Brown, didn't seem to do much acting, other than to roll her eyes from side to side, or to glance down in shyness when dealing with the handsome lad who played Steven Rimbauer. I know she was supposed to be autistic, but still. Also, she was supposed to be fifteen, but looked closeer to eleven or twelve. I thought for a while that there was going to be a romantic spark between her and the Rimbauer guy.

I would've liked to have seen more of Emily Deschanel (from the TV show, Bones) as Pam Asbury. She had a good role, but died too quickly in the plot. Her ghost, however, was used to seduce two of the male members out of their bedrooms at night, setting them up for their deaths.

My last mention is Judith Ivery as the Christian automatic psychic handwriter. Judith played a Christian mother in The Devil's Advocate with Keanu Reeves as her son. That was definitely a much better movie all the way around, but she plays a believable Christian of the Baptist sort. She also looked much younger here than in the earlier movie.

What was really enjoyable about the film was the way the production team did the house of Rose Red. That was scary. The house had it all from hallways of an infinite length to upside-down rooms to the ghosts of beautiful celebrities who might end up in your bed at night to the mysterious shapes underneath the carpets and bedspreads to the wicked-looking hands appearing from under the beds. For television, some of these scares were pretty damn good.

On the flip side, a lot of things taking place were also just plain stupid and took away from the dark atmosphere of the series. The professor who was head of the university department and the university newspaper reporter weren't needed at all and took away from the storyline. They were just filler to make the script longer. Emery's mom was totally unnecessary as was the back story on Annie Wheaton and her sister. I rolled my own eyes at some of the shenanigans taking place. Of course, after a number of people have died and the group is now aware of the dangers inside the house, you still had members taking off by themselves like idiots. Always stay in a group, people! Don't these guys learn anything from watching the slasher movies?

Still, the series could have been worse. I would easily give it a C+ or a very low B- for effort. Oh, Stephen King had a camero as the pizza delivery guy. He played for all it was worth!

The extras certainly left a lot to be desired. Rather than dealing with the making of the television movie, the DVD goes off on a tangent about the series being based on true events that have been discussed in the actual Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, which was later the bases for the TV movie of that name. The extras would get a big "F" from me.

So, would I buy this DVD again, knowing what I do about the movie? Yes, I would. I got it from Amazon for five bucks, which was an excellent price. The movie was worth that much, and it was a good way to kill (no pun intended) a few hours.