Despite the negative reviews I found this AD Original quite engrossing. The acting was solid. While there was no true originality, which is hard tgese days, I think the cast and crew did a good job putting putting together a haunted house / ghost story , depth into madness film. No over the top gore but some good kills and blood in the right places.

The Director has a good eye for shot composition, and the pace of the film was good. Moved along well. Main setback was the lack of character development for the male lead. He was generally unconvincing up against the solid performance by the female lead Leisha Hailey.As a result of his lack of authenticity, the transition he goes through into the more evil version of himself felt forced, unnatural and unjustified. A symptom of bad casting, writing, editing (essential parts of his development could have ended up on the cutting room floor) or bad acting.The sound design was good but the dialogue had issues. Better sound recordist needed, or quieter locations, or a better dialogue edit, or a bunch of ADR sessions would have helped here. Not sure which dept was at fault. Ahh yes, you guys heard of this thing called "Denoise"" RX4 would have helped clean up your noisy recordings.Overall it was compelling, only for the strong female lead. All other casting in the film was mediocre.I loved the drift away section in the party scene. Total Magic !! Spend more time looking for the right actors and put some money into hiring a more seasoned casting department. Even on a low budget, if you put the time in, more ideal actors will emerge.

Director, co-writer and even cast member, Adam Gierasch brings us the tale of Emily Weaver, a city girl who, after her miscarriage is whisked by her husband to his family home in rural Iowa.The country idyll and her own recovery begin to pale as she discovers the grizzly past of former occupants whose malevolent spirits haunt the house. Discovering that she is pregnant again, she realises that she may face the same fate as previous expectant mothers who were killed by their partners......at least, that's what we are led to believe. The truth turns out to be much more prosaic and is, unfortunately, one of a number of downfalls which help to make this attempt so disappointing. Seen through the eyes of our heroine, she sees her artist husband's agent Risa attempting a romantic intrigue with him, her best friend Brittany conspiring with him and the man himself falling into madness whilst plotting her demise.We are of course given enough clues - depression, stopping medication, hints of paranoia - to work out the truth and to guess the ending which takes an overlong time to appear on the horizon.Whilst there are a few scary and gory moments, there is not enough here even to pad out an hour and a half which means it feels like two hours or more until we reach a quite expected denouement. Stephan Sechi's soundtrack does little to enhance particularly as it is frequently played at a level which drowns out dialogue - although this could be claimed to improve things slightly as the characters seem to have to carefully explain everything to each other in case we miss anything. Shot on location, the starkness of the Iowan landscape, although hinted at, is largely wasted.Leisha Hailey does fairly well as Emily Weaver despite - or perhaps because of - depending on one's point of view - the almost obsessive images of her cleavage and breasts. Less convincing in their roles are Gale Harold as her husband Nate, Stephanie Brown as Risa and JoNell Kennedy as Brittany.Whilst IMDb does not give a budget for this film, this would seem to be the biggest stumbling block. The camera work, location shooting and general air of cleverness seem to indicate an attempt to produce a serious horror movie. Perhaps the makers would have been better off with a smaller budget and a chance to ham it up a little...One footnote: The chapter headings were both pointless and annoying.

I'm always on the search for new horror movies and they generally fail to make me finish the film and feel scared or, more importantly, think "that was a great film".This one is just the same. I think if you're looking for some horror and have come to the expectancy I have (5-7/10 max), then this is OK to play something for the night. My tip is simply... not to watch the trailer! Just like all crappy comedies, instead of all the best jokes being in the trailer... all of the jumpy parts are in the trailer. This makes it really lack anything in the fear factor!Worth a watch if you want to watch a basic horror, but its nothing special.