Dream House is a Complex and Well-Acted Mystery
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Dream House is compelling and interesting because of its acting. There are plenty of twists in the story, but do yourself a favor and don’t watch the trailer before you see this one.
Written by James “Crypticpsych” Lasome
October 2, 2011
Movie Trailer
Image Gallery
Release: September 30, 2011 (US)
Directed by: Jim Sheridan
Written by: David Loucka
Starring:
Daniel Craig as Will Atenton
Rachel Weisz as Libby
Naomi Watts as Ann Patterson
Marton Csokas as Jack Patterson
Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) has just quit his high-paying job in New York City to spend more time with his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz), and two children. They’ve recently bought a new house in a suburban neighborhood that’s everything they ever wanted. However, something doesn’t seem right. The children keep seeing and hearing things outside the house. Their neighbors, the Pattersons (Naomi Watts and Marton Csokas) seem standoffish and quiet. Will even stumbles across a band of gothy, punky teenagers vandalizing and crashing in his basement who claim something happened in the house he doesn’t know about. As Will tries to uncover the house’s dark past, he finds the police uncooperative and ignoring his pleas for help. Will he ever discover the truth? And will he be ready to handle it when he does?
Before actually reviewing Dream House (not to be confused with Dream Home, the Hong Kong slasher-drama), we have to address the elephant in the room. The primary buzz before the movie’s release was that there was a GIGANTIC spoiler in the trailer. This is true, but, there are far more twists and turns to the movie than that one revealed plot point and that one hits surprisingly early. Watching the trailer beforehand won’t destroy the film, but it will remove the surprise of one element of the movie’s plot. Watch the trailer at your own risk. This writing is purposely spoiler-free.
Dream House is painted as a supernatural horror movie, but
it very much is not. This is more of a supernatural mystery-drama, and
while 
effectively creepy this film is not
“scary”. The best assets are the twist-laden story and how well Daniel
Craig’s character adjusts to them. The plot is a little derivative of
other haunted house/place movies but works on its own because of how
effectively the twists are handled. Since many of them also directly
affect Daniel Craig’s character, his performance makes or breaks the
film, and while he starts out a bit phony, he grows into the character
and plays well off the rest of the cast. As the story begins to change,
his perspective does with it. He adapts well and creates a character
very easy to root for.
Unfortunately, Dream House takes too long to get going
feels very slow and dull early on. In some ways the early twist given
away in the trailer is responsible for this. That twist is such a shift
that it kind of diminishes the impact of everything that had happened
to that point and feels like a reset button was pushed. Once we get to
the film’s climax it 
is satisfying, but the coda
afterwards feels very tacked on and unnecessary. Overall, Dream
House would have benefited by some more time spent in the writing
phase as it needed a bit of work to bring everything together into one
whole.
Dream House, while generally entertaining, feels a bit like a missed opportunity. The choice by Morgan Creek to spoil a plot twist in the trailer and advertise the movie as a completely different style of film than it actually is absolutely prejudices any opinion. Looking beyond that we have a film with a decent concept and a good lead performance by Daniel Craig that works in its own way in spite of storytelling lapses. Going into Dream House as blind as possible is probably wisest, though some prior knowledge probably won’t kill the total experience.
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