If These Walls Could Talk

This is a haunted house story. It involves a couple of kids who enjoy drinking and fooling around in a spooky old house. One night they disappear without a trace. The focus then goes to two people, both of whom have appeared on a talk show that has investigated paranormal experiences. The woman is the mother of the missing boy; the man a debunker of supernatural experiences. The two come together as mild adversaries. She talks him into going to the house because in a previous visit, she has heard eerie sounds. As they test the waters, they begin to notice odd things happening and more strange sounds. He struggles to attribute them to natural phenomena. The police become involved when an unbalanced vagrant is found in the place and the strange events are attributed to him. Of course, this won't be the end of it. This is both a ghost story about a house that takes on an anthropomorphic presence and a story of people who have endured tragedy. If one watches enough movies and has had a dose of the X-Factor, this is pretty much old school.

There's room for improvement here, but what IS here isn't that bad tbh. Besides, it's interesting to see how much Ryan Reynolds hasn't really changed over the years, he's always been kinda cute but he just looks like he's filled out a bit more since the 'early days'. It's kind of a shame he's barely in this because it'd be interesting to see how he's grown as an actor. Anyway...

It's an interesting enough story - a haunted (or is it?) house seemingly swallows a couple of teens who went there to mess around so the mother of one enlists a psychic/supernatural debunker to find out what happened, hijinks ensue, nothing is definitively answered.

The lack of definitive answers isn't really a problem because, for the most part, this is what this show does - it poses questions and leaves the audience to ultimately answer for themselves. However, it just feels...half cooked? The effects are great for the time it was made, the acting is fine (and it was fun seeing Dwight Shultz outside of The A Team), and the story is fine, but it could have been MORE.

The son of divorced parents, whose mother forbids him seeing a troubled girl, uses an abandoned house to still see her. But one night after going to the house they both disappear without a trace. Police believe them to be runaways, but the mother does not give up on the conviction that her son is dead and takes matters into her own hands.

The episode is totally unoriginal, but based on previous experience I didn't expect it anyway, so I won't take lack of originality against it. This is a classic story about a haunted house, only instead of ghosts it uses a quasi-scientific outcome and this combination of horror and SF is quite interesting and additionally empowered by solid acting and effects unexpectedly good for this type of series. If you're not a picky nagger, it's quite enjoyable.

8/10