House of Bones

House of Bones isn't terrible. That might usually be the best thing I can say about it, but the writers and director do deserve a little credit. The direction is competent and the cinematography is actually impressive for a straight-to-TV feature (meaning it doesn't look like crap or made rushed or hyper-stylized or tinted or whatever). And the script has a few legitimately funny lines of dialog between the baffled crew members on the reality TV show about to film an episode on a haunted-HUNGRY house (must emphasize hungry as it needs to eat). And when it comes time to get to the gore and effects and some of the usual lot of chincy CGI, it's not half-bad. And yet the script does falter when it comes time to really get to internal logic, or to explaining things in exposition, or bringing on the stereotypical a-hole TV show host who comes in the last third of the movie for a lot of useless yammering until his fate comes clear.

But most depressing of all is seeing Charisma Carpenter here. She's never been a Shakespearean thespian or anything, but she's never needed to be. Featured on Buffy and Angel for many of their best seasons, she's always been a solid actress for those and other shows. But here she looks kind of bored and almost a little sad to be having the dubious pleasure of starring in a straight-to-SyFy channel movie. While her fate isn't quite as abysmal as her co-stars on those shows (Amber Benson in Gryphon and Nicholas Brendon in Fire Serpent), it's no great shakes for her character, a psychic and ghost-talker of some kind who should be leaving the house the moment she starts coughing up blood, but stays on for the good (or bad) of those around her in this crazy old piece of property. She doesn't bring the film down, but it's hard for her to do anything to bring up the standard at best so-so at worst stupid and laughable piece of horror drek before her.

A supposed reality show that does turn real as it progresses. Charisma Carpenter gets the lead billing and plays a sensitive. When she pulls the string of hair out of her mouth it gets a bit much. She won't leave the house because she says she is the only one that can help. The rest of the crew are pretty much unbelievers in the super natural based on their past shows. When they encounter an actually super natural occurrence they start to freak out. Corin Nemec is the shows star, is an egotistical pretty boy who thinks he is the cats meow, and shows up late for the filming and actually plays kind of a bit part. Marcus Lee Brown is the technical guy. The crew wants to bail on the project but the producer won't let them if they want to stay employed. The cute young bank agent played by Stephanie Honore unfortunately returns to the house and gets killed by shattered glass. The remaining crew finally believes and start a search for the source. They should have stayed together. Feeding the well so they can escape turns to be a bad idea. The end is a little unexpected as the producer goes to the dark side and kills everyone else. He continues on as an agent of the house.

This is an interesting take on the haunted house motif. Here the house "lives" off the bodies of its victims. Unfortunately this house doesn't take many victims on its own and when it does, its doesn't do as much as it could with them. For example, when a couple of bodies are disposed of within the house, there's an off-screen crunching sound and signs that the house is growing stronger from the nourishment, but these scenes are not that creepy.

Also there are a couple of scenes that are entirely pointless and make little sense overall including a black shadow that roams around in a couple of scenes and tries to look scary but ultimately doesn't do anything.

The film does excel in showing how the house distracts and separates the group even after the protagonists tell themselves not to split up when searching the house. Also, I'm glad to finally see a movie that realizes that eye trauma does not necessarily equate to death.

A couple of lame jump scares aside, this film produces a creepy atmosphere similar to what Rose Red created, but not quite as intense as 1408. Its far from bad, but it could have been a lot better.

Anyone who watches original SyFy movies knows what to expect - a low budget look, often a poor script and average to below average acting. No one watches an original SyFy film for greatness - it's just shameless entertainment even if that entertainment comes from how bad the movie is and House of Bones is really no different.

Basically, there is a TV show called Sinister Sites that goes to 'haunted' houses, films footage and airs what they found. Up till the latest house, the crew hadn't really found anything spooky and relied on smoke machines and tactics (always shoot at night) to drum up the scare factor and manipulate their nothing findings into an interesting show for viewers to watch. The ratings for the show were dropping so the show added a pretty female psychic to the team (Charisma Carpenter) and also decided that rather than stand behind a green screen and host the show, the host would actually go to the locations as well.

Of course THIS house is not like the others - it's actually HAUNTED. People have been disappearing from this home for years (slaves, prostitutes, children) with the last person disappearing in 1950 - a little boy. Things immediately seem odd when the refrigerator is stocked full of fresh produce/food despite no one having lived there in decades. Then, as the crew starts setting up cameras and devices throughout the house, one of the members goes MISSING! .. and let the craziness ensue.

I can not stress enough that if you want to watch this movie because you like Charisma Carpenter, just pass. Although she's technically in most of the movie, she doesn't really do anything. She's the psychic and she spends most of the movie randomly walking through the house getting vibes saying nothing other than the occasional 'We need to leave' or 'This house is evil' and is often randomly in the background of scenes where the other actors are actually doing/saying things. She doesn't have much dialogue and doesn't really actually do anything beyond what an extra could handle till maybe the last twenty minutes and even then, it's nothing to write home about. Just a fair warning seeing as how this movie is horrible. No reason to watch for her since it's not worth it - trust me.

In the end, you have a stupid, cheaply made SyFy movie that completely falls apart in the past 3rd of the film. It gets too ridiculous and stupid to be taken even partially serious and by the end you will probably be laughing like me at how DUMB it is. Just pass. 3/10

I would simply suggest watching this movie for what it is, a simple low budget horror movie. Everything in this is just correct... not bad or not that good. The story is pretty much classic , a haunted house, but they had a few thing to make it goes out of the ordinary. Special Effects are neither awesome but not bad at all, they are lets say believable. Actors where average at best but you are not watching an horror movie for its acting right? Charisma Carpenter should had less clothes on but well... lol. Seriously i enjoyed this little movie on a late night, it won't remain burned in my head for long, but it was entertaining on the moment.