Movie Review: The Disappointments Room (2016)

The movie stars Kate Beckinsale, Mel Raido, Duncan Joiner, Lucas Till and Joely Fisher.

It had been a few days since my wife and I watched a horror movie together so I ended up searching Netflix for one and came across this film. I had never heard of it before but it looked somewhat interesting and I recognized some of the names starring in it so I decided to give it a chance. As a it turns out, it wasn't as good of a movie I was hoping it would be.

This film did have some real potential. The house they moved into was somewhat creepy and, mostly because of the size of the manor, created a strong feeling of isolation.

Plus, I liked the mystery about the "disappointments room" and the ghosts that haunted it. At first at least, I wondered if they were evil spirits or if they were secretly trying to warn the wife (Beckinsale) about her husband (Raido) or the very pushy local handyman (Till). 

My biggest problem with this movie is, when I watched it, I felt like there was a lot cut out of it. It wasn't necessarily a bad movie. I just felt like there should have been so much more to it than there was.

This is especially true of the various supporting characters. The handyman, for example, acted like he might have an ulterior motive for wanting to help with the house (and not just wanting to sleep with the wife). In fact, I was kind of hoping he would end up being some sort of bad guy but, when it was all said and done, his role was really just limited to some flirting.

On top of it, the local historian (Marcia DeRousse) seemed like she could be an interesting addition, especially with her interest in ghosts. But, once again, we only saw her in a limited capacity to the point it was almost pointless even introducing us to her.

I'm also not a big fan of the ending, mostly because it seemed so anti-climatic. Let's put it this way, I'm perfectly OK with leaving things a little bit open-ended to set up potential sequels.  But, there still needs to be some sort of closure. This film doesn't seem to even make an effort to do that and the ending is very bland as a result.

As I said before, this movie had the potential to be something memorable. Unfortunately, the execution left a lot to be desired and, as a result, it wasn't as good of a film as it could have been.

Final Opinion: C