THE HAUNTING OF BAYLOCK RESIDENCE is a British ghost story about a woman who inherits her sister's home after her sister passes away. She finds, once she arrives, that all is not as it seems. She begins to realize that she and the housekeeper are not the only beings in the house.
This movie is an independent project and a freshman effort for the film maker. I've seen some absolutely awful endeavors at initial films but this one is well done compared to many other attempts at movie making I've seen.
Most of the acting done by the principal players was above average for a lower budget film. There were some problems with audio here and there and the opening scene was a bit overdone, but overall I think the leads did well. I can't say that I felt the same way about some of the other roles though - I felt some characters were totally miscast and weren't nearly as convincing. I also found that some of them had a tendency to mumble their lines which made them even less credible.
The film was shot in black and white which generally means that the movie will rely more on atmosphere than anything else. THE HAUNTING OF BAYLOCK RESIDENCE does rely a lot on setting a mood, but it is done well. The soundtrack added additional feeling to the film and made sense throughout. There were a few parts, however, where the soundtrack overwhelmed the dialog and what the actors were saying couldn't be heard. There was no CGI in the film, but the special effects, such as they are, were still well done and convincing.
The plot and dialog were also pretty well written. There was a lot of standard fare and scenes you would expect from any haunted house movie, however, they were nicely crafted and the plot had some twists and turns that I didn't see coming. I won't spoil those in this review.
So, bottom line is that HBR is a ghost story about things that go bump in the night with a few jump scares here and there. There is no gore or CGI to speak of so if that is your thing, you might find the movie a little dry and might want to skip it. If you like ghost stories that are less graphic than a lot of the current fare, I think this one is worth a watch. It kept me interested throughout and I felt my time was pretty well spent.
