⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
A family’s dream home turns into a real scream home (please Lord, forgive me for that) when the picture-perfect new start ends up hiding a malevolent force. Husband/papa Frank is kind of an ass but I don’t really blame him when his toddler son Peter is such a chooch. Wife/mama Sara is a journalist and definitely looks like a product of the 80’s. There’s also a pudgy-cheeked daughter whose name I don’t remember… she’s a saint compared to the insufferable Peter. Things start out fine, with little projects getting completed and the quartet easing in to their new surroundings but a few troubling occurrences plant a seed of doubt that “happily ever after” is in the cards for the family. On top of Frank’s work pressure (which is adding to the money pressures) some unexplainable things are happening in the walls of the new home. All the newly installed wallpaper falls off in the children’s room which could probably be explained away by inadequate installation judging by how much goofing off Frank was doing when he was putting it up. But, after a night of heavy drinking (Frank blew his business presentation), Frank hears some disturbing noises coming from the walls of his new home. When he attempts a second go at wallpapering, he uses double the glue but in the time it takes him to have an argument with his wife about foolishly buying a new house and car before his business deal went through, the paper is off the walls again. More noises lead him to the creepy-ass attic and the probable location for ground zero of paranormal spookiness… the room hidden behind a camouflaged locked door. Frank begins to believe the place is haunted but his wife thinks he’s nuts… can’t say I blame her… Frank is definitely losing his cool and drinking more. Sara is more concerned that her hubby is spending his time obsessing over spirits instead of coming up with a new idea for his business associates… Sara is a very smart woman. It doesn’t help that all the spooky shit is only being experienced by him, like wet footprints in an empty room disappearing completely when he screams for his wife to take a look. It gets so bad, Frank reaches out to a ghost hunter for assistance after reading an article of his in Occult Magazine. Pervert-lookin’ Allen arrives the next day to lend a helping hand with the otherworldly tomfoolery (still wouldn’t trust him around the kiddos). He sets up his equipment and camps down for the night with Frank, sharing a spooky story and multiple beers. The equipment gets triggered and Allen tracks the energy to the secret attic room because of course that’s where every awful thing is originating from. Allen demands they see what’s behind the door and what they find is a disturbing clutter of masks, vines, cobwebs, creepy paintings and a journal pointing to a sinister history. The two men flee when a cold wind kicks up and Frank wants to wake up his family and nope the fuck out. Allen thinks more research is the way to go and he has a laser tool that can not only manifest energy in the house but can also zap the spirit (after all, it’s just collected energy) with enough of a shock to dispel it completely. As much as questionable “science” may be at play, I guess it’s worth a shot. Hilariously, this contraption leads to the two men dodging laser blasts from the malfunctioning machine. A death on the property brings a police inspector into the fold and he’s not buying the “homicide by ghost” explanation. With their world crumbling and her husband’s troubling insistence of the home being haunted, Sara runs out on her husband and kids (like I said, she’s a smart lady and sure it may not be the children’s fault but they suck, so fuck ‘em). With no way out and a bad storm hitting, papa and the kids seem stuck on the premises… at least he has his hands on the paranormal investigator’s arsenal. That’s a good thing, because whatever the hell had been calling the place its domain is about to show it’s ugly self. Mama comes back, things get violent and Frank comes off like a broke-ass Ghostbuster as the crescendo hits. A banana-loving mailman with a ponytail shows up for some comedic bits, the hero resembles a homely Antonio Banderas and it’s never really concerned with getting your pulse racing as it plays with the gender roles one would usually find in this type of offering. It’s a slow-brewing haunted house thriller that benefits from a family who may not be all-around likable but are definitely believable in their actions and the right amount of supernatural maliciousness raising a threat before the standout ghoul makes an appearance in the final minutes.
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