Adaptation of James Herbert’s solid novel (I happen to prefer its sequel The Ghosts of Sleath because I like it when shit goes nuts) manages to cast two solid leads in the usually dependable and always handsome Aiden Quinn and the mostly dependable and drop-dead gorgeous Kate Beckinsale. Quinn portrays psychology professor David Ash who is a respected skeptic and has disproven several accounts of paranormal tomfoolery. Two decades earlier, Ash lost his twin sister to a drowning accident and it haunts him to this day. Grief stricken, he and his family left for America. He has returned to England to take a teaching position at Cambridge. He’s already written a book on his experiences disproving mediums and the like. The elderly nanny for the Mariell family continually reaches out for help with the supernatural, claiming she’s being held prisoner by evil spirits. With his extended knowledge of frauds and the world beyond the veil, our boy Ash appears to be the best person to contact and assist. He’s invited out to the remote British estate supposedly being plagued by psychic phenomena where he can hopefully ease the worries of the stressed old woman. Christina Mariell picks him up from the train and since it’s Beckinsale he’s just as taken with this young woman as I am. She drives him to the impressive family estate and meets her two brothers who are kind of weirdos. Younger Simon is a practical joker who acts way younger than he is and stuffy Robert may have a thing for his sister. I know she’s Kate Beckinsale but yuck. All of the siblings appear to be up to no good and David believes the same thing because on the first night he hears scratching and tapping. When he questions the group, they laugh it off. The nanny gets more and more upset as the professor refuses to believe there’s anything spooky going on even as the skeptic begins to see things himself. Christina plays at seduction with David, Simon behaves like his parents are first cousins (possible, it is 1928 England) and Robert wants the man of science to leave. David is sure there’s a human behind all of this bullshit, thinking his mind is playing tricks on him when the specter of his much-missed sister begins to appear. It’s a slow-going affair working with a bunch of time that it doesn’t necessarily need. The melodrama feels a bit ill-handled thanks to insisting it needs to be taken seriously. It’s a bit of a fumble on the film’s part and leads to a bit of awkwardness between what the strong cast should be delivering. Quinn seems drugged throughout the runtime, never fitting in with what comes off like a BBC television production with a little more money behind it. There’s still a few fun haunted house shenanigans at play, Beckinsale is Beckinsale, Quinn bugs his eyes with the best of them, the underlying vibe of rot is well utilized, David Ash gets some mad hops during a car accident and there are a few laughably dumb bits to break the sluggish pace… unfortunately they’re almost completely relegated to the climax.
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