Dream House (2011)

Directed by: Jim Sheridan
Written by: David Loucka
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Marton Csokas

Dream House is just plain terrible.

That may be one of the more damning lines I've ever used to open a review. But it's true, and I don't really see any reason to hold back. This is a hopelessly lost film that's just as brain damaged as its main protagonist. It's completely nonsensical garbage that was mangled by horrible decisions by Morgan Creek Productions, a company so vapidly senile that they thought it a good idea to seize the film from director Jim Sheridan, hacked it to stupidity, and release a product so groan inducing, so pitifully awful, that Jim Sheridan, as well as main talent Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, all jumped ship and refused to do press for the film.

It's that bad.

To really talk about this film, we're going to blow a spoiler that's spilled at the end of the first act. That we're revealing the spoiler isn't really anything at all, considering the smart minds of Morgan Creek blew the same spoiler in the film's official HD trailer. It's hard to spoil anything that sucks this bad, anyway - try as you might, you just can't spoil an already rotten egg.

The entire first act of The Dream House is 20 some odd minutes of a complete bullshit hallucination by crazy man Will Atenton (Daniel Craig). Atenton quits his big job as a publisher so that he can stay in his new home with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and two daughters, as well as get some good writing time to explore a new book idea. Soon, though, spooky crap starts to happen. Footsteps are found out in the snow. Neighbors give him mean looks. Dorky goth kids open a Hot Topic in his basement and are caught snorting powdered patchouli off each others asses.

Atenton soon learns all the reason for all the weirdness. A woman and her two children were slaughtered in the home before Atenton purchased it. The woman's husband, Peter Ward, was also shot, but survived to remain the prime suspect in the murders.

This is also complete crap, and it's time to bust out our first act reveal; Atenton is Peter Ward. This is what is revealed at the end of the first act, and is also fully revealed in the film's official trailer. The entire first act is Ward's hallucination. He's been living in his empty, run down home after being released from the loony bin. His wife and daughters were gunned down and he also took a bullet to the head. The police suspected a murder/attempted suicide, but apparently lacked evidence to prosecute. Atenton (now Ward) can't remember a damned bit of it, and so the rest of the film follows the man as he tried to root out the mystery of just who killed his family - even if it ends up being himself.

The way this entire bungled mess is spilled out is boggling. None of it makes sense. First, insanity just doesn't work that way. It just doesn't. I don't care if he has a dent in his skull from a bullet. Even if you somehow convinced me that Ward was so completely nuts that he somehow hallucinated his entire family around him for weeks, you could never make me agree that he would be otherwise functioning. Anyone crazy enough to have those hallucinations would be complete shambling wreck. In all the non-hallucinatory scenes, Craig should have been shown naked, covered in his own feces, with a thick mat of green drool hanging from his unshaven mug. If someone's hallucinating that badly, that's what they're going to be doing - lying around in their own poop and not shaving. Instead, Craig is his normal gentlemanly self, looking well kept, handsome, and recently bathed.

Worse than that - he's ripped. If getting shot in the head, ending up bed ridden for months, and being locked up in an insane asylum ends up in building abs of steel like Craig repeatedly flashes, then wow, pass me the gun because I seriously want some of that. Bang! Rockin' abs here I come!

But, even beyond his own personal hygiene - now that he supposedly thinks he's Will Atenton, who's been paying the mortgage on the home? The electricity? The credit card, cable, and phone bills? No one's going to take a check from 'Will Atenton'; if Will tried, he'd soon be locked up for check fraud. You just can't hallucinate and think you're someone else and have your bank card magically change its name with you.

As bad as it all is, the film manages to sink even lower with the third act reveal and the ensuing action. Craig suddenly becomes a crazy man action hero, intent on beating down the real villain. I'm sorry - to reveal that there's a hidden villain might be another spoiler; however, no one in their right mind should ever give a damn. That's like revealing that Sid Haig is one of the bad guys in the recently profoundly bad Creature. Do you care that I just spoiled that Sid Haig is one of the bad guys in the profoundly bad Creature? No, you don't - and the reason you don't care is that the movie is absolutely terrible. This is the same thing here. You can't really spoil terrible movies. You can only light the damned thing on fire and hope the stink of it clears by morning.

This is a Day Two Review.

Rating: (1 out of 5):