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Genre: Drama, Thriller, Haunted House
Jop’s Rating: 8/10
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Stephen King on the Rose Red Set
My favorite Stephen King TV Movie and is the start of my King Movie Marathons, which begin in late September, eagerly awaiting my favorite month of the year for movies, October! King writes a mini-series for ABC television about a Mansion that is haunted and takes you into a story that could be considered a piece of moving artwork. The music and camera works are simply beautiful for a ghost story with great talents in makeup, special effects and details that are like some kind of inviting trance that will not let you turn away from this piece of art and maybe give a small chill or two. King tells a story of the past and the present with scenes that help the story unfold and his quirky characters provide a lightness bringing a little reality to the film of a human nature.
Rose Red, a house that in time would go on to built itself and take the lives of those who cause pain or tragedy to an owner
that the house loved, Ellen Rimbauer, is an obsession for Professor Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis). With the help of her boyfriend, Steven Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar) she enlists the help of a group of Physics and plans a journey into the house labelled a “dead cell”. The Physics all have different abilities and provide the professor with a group of “batteries” to recharge her dead cell and bring to life the proof she needs to become famous. Due to the romantic involvement with the great-grandson of the family Steven, the Professor has complete access to the
Click to view Rose Red Haunted Movie Clip
mansion. The Professor starts off with a slide show history of the Rimbauer Mansion and shares all her findings on the family, giving facts and dates of it’s tragedies and disappearances. Also in attendance is her rival Professor Carl Miller’s (David Dukes)
snoop, the editor of the college paper, which prints comical stories of Joyce Readon’s group, tagging them “ghostbusters”. The only missing link is her star physic, a teenage autistic girl named Anne (Kimberly J. Brown) with strong telekinetic talents. Anne and her sister Rachel (Melanie Lynskey) soon join the group and begin into a journey of a house that eventually will not let them go.
This film is slow paced due to it’s character driven story line. The cast of great talents include Judith Ivey, Matt Ross, Julian Sands, Emily Deschanel, Julia Campbell, Tsidii Leloka, John Procaccino and my favorite, Kevin Tighe. If you are not one for gore and horror
but like a good mystery and ghost story this is a must watch. Stephen King’s skill is shown here when you do not need all horror to present a descent ghost thriller.
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DVD Special Features:
Click to view “Making Of”
This dvd has an excellent “making of” for this film and interviewed Stephen King about the writing of this story. His inspiration came from the Winchestor Family’s mansion which was believed to be haunted. This is where the quote “build me to the heaven’s and life never stops” Came across this 1963 Documentary on the Winchester House.
Thornewood Castle
came from and this house still stands to this day. This Rose Red house filmed it’s outside location at a mansion named the Thornewood Castle and it too was know for being haunted and is a bed and breakfast today. The current owner had turned the mansion into apartments due to financial issues. Upon wishing to film there the movie company rebuilt it’s glorious rooms for filming and left it to the owner. The Rose Red Film was marketed as being a “true story”, along with it’s prequell The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer. However with much internet searching I found nothing of truth but only learned both movies to be fictional, including the characters. Producers contracted a writer Ridley Pearson to write the novel of Ellen’s Diary under the assumed name of Joyce Reardon while Rose Red was in productions and planned to release the Diary Movie the next year.
Fake Documentary of Ellen Rimbauer Diary
The Rose Red special features has a promotional documentary of The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer as being “true” also, with a real Joyce Reardon and Steven Rimbauer in which only stated phrases and pictures from the movie in their interviews. This is all fake, just a good story with tacky promotions, in my option. However, I did buy
the novel, I am interested in the read 🙂 and it was interesting to find what little truth there was behind my favorite Stephen King Ghost Story. If you watch Rose Red
then you must continue the story and watch The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer as it just completes the story.