House of Bones starts as a television network executive tells reality television show 'Sinster Sites' host Quentin French (Corin Nemec) that the show is close to being cancelled & that he needs to do some location filming. Meanwhile Sinister Sites producer Tom Rule (Ricky Wayne) has found a supposedly haunted house & is checking it out with lead investigator Gred Fished (Marcus Lyle Brown), cameraman Simon (Colin Gaylean), production assistant Bub (Kyle Russell Clements) & psychic Heather Burton (Charisma Carpenter) who is there to add some authenticity to the show. The crew set their equipment up but Heather sense something evil, a supernatural presence that lures Bub to his death & gains energy from his demise. Soon the house has trapped the remaining crew inside itself & begins to terrorise & kill them as it needs fresh human soul's to exist. As the mystery of the house is revealed the survivors fight for their lives in a desperate bid to escape...
Directed by Jeffrey Scott Lando this SyFy Channel original is a slight departure for them as House of Bones does not feature any giant Fish, Reptile, Dinosaur or Animal of any description & instead turns it's collective attention to the haunted house genre. House of Bones is a mixture of films such as Burnt Offerings (1976), The Shining (1980), Poltergeist (1982), The Ring (2002) & The Skeleton Key (2005) & shamelessly rips them off both in style & content. To be fair House of Bones isn't the worst film I have ever seen but it's pretty moronic & poor, I also had the misfortune to be suckered in by cool Blu-ray artwork & brought it blind so I actually paid good money for this, yes, I am mad & I feel very foolish. The basic story about a reality television show crew being trapped in a haunted house is decent enough & I really liked the idea that the house fed off the character's death's & behind all the walls are slimy entrails, bones & bits of human flesh but that's about as good as House of Bones gets. At 85 minutes long House of Bones has a reasonable pace & one or two decent moments but overall it's lacklustre, tame & underdeveloped. The human remains behind the walls are never really expanded upon, the well at the end comes out of nowhere & feels like it's there because there was a haunted well in The Ring while the ending makes no sense as surely if a television crew just disappeared questions would be asked & official investigations commenced. While House of Bones takes itself seriously for the vast majority of it's duration there's some grating comic relief with Corin Nemec as the main host who overacts but does provide some relief from the dullness, I am also surprised that none of the crew still trapped inside the house ask Quentin to go for help while he is outside trying to get in. Not that House of Bones makes any logical sense anyway, decision making by the character's leaves a lot to be desired to be honest. The script tries to vary things but ideas that are introduced are quickly dropped never to be brought up again, the glowing worm things for instance seem to serve no great purpose.
House of Bones looks alright, it's competently made enough with the minimal use of CGI computer effects work which the SyFy Channel are notorious for, there's not much blood or gore & a pretty low body count although I must commend the makers for the rather downbeat if implausible ending. There's a brief shot of some severed toes, a bit of blood splatter, a very tame scene in which someone gets a shard of glass stuck in their mouth, someone gets a drill in his eyeball & the best kill when a cop tries to climb over the fence & is impaled on the fencing spikes. Charisma Carpenter keeps her clothes on throughout & quite frumpy they are too. Forget about the really cool looking monster on the DVD/Blu-ray artwork as showcased by the IMDb on the House of Bones main page, it's in the film for about ten seconds & there's never a full body shot of it either, just a few brief quick flashes before it disappears back down the well. Don't be fooled like I was, hell I was ripped-off but you don't have to be. The entire film is brightly lit & mainly set in the day in a fairly small hose which does not to build tension, suspense or atmosphere.
Filmed in Crowley & Lafayette in Louisiana this has pretty good production values actually, it looks reasonably good to be fair to it. The acting is so-so, it's not laugh out loud terrible but not exactly great either.
House of Bones is the first film I have brought blind in years in the sense that I didn't check any online reviews or anything & was suckered in by a nice box, I feel cheated & even buying a cheap second hand copy I feel ripped-off & disappointed. Not as terrible as some SyFy Channel films but I'd rather have watched it for free than spend good money on it.
Directed by Jeffrey Scott Lando this SyFy Channel original is a slight departure for them as House of Bones does not feature any giant Fish, Reptile, Dinosaur or Animal of any description & instead turns it's collective attention to the haunted house genre. House of Bones is a mixture of films such as Burnt Offerings (1976), The Shining (1980), Poltergeist (1982), The Ring (2002) & The Skeleton Key (2005) & shamelessly rips them off both in style & content. To be fair House of Bones isn't the worst film I have ever seen but it's pretty moronic & poor, I also had the misfortune to be suckered in by cool Blu-ray artwork & brought it blind so I actually paid good money for this, yes, I am mad & I feel very foolish. The basic story about a reality television show crew being trapped in a haunted house is decent enough & I really liked the idea that the house fed off the character's death's & behind all the walls are slimy entrails, bones & bits of human flesh but that's about as good as House of Bones gets. At 85 minutes long House of Bones has a reasonable pace & one or two decent moments but overall it's lacklustre, tame & underdeveloped. The human remains behind the walls are never really expanded upon, the well at the end comes out of nowhere & feels like it's there because there was a haunted well in The Ring while the ending makes no sense as surely if a television crew just disappeared questions would be asked & official investigations commenced. While House of Bones takes itself seriously for the vast majority of it's duration there's some grating comic relief with Corin Nemec as the main host who overacts but does provide some relief from the dullness, I am also surprised that none of the crew still trapped inside the house ask Quentin to go for help while he is outside trying to get in. Not that House of Bones makes any logical sense anyway, decision making by the character's leaves a lot to be desired to be honest. The script tries to vary things but ideas that are introduced are quickly dropped never to be brought up again, the glowing worm things for instance seem to serve no great purpose.
House of Bones looks alright, it's competently made enough with the minimal use of CGI computer effects work which the SyFy Channel are notorious for, there's not much blood or gore & a pretty low body count although I must commend the makers for the rather downbeat if implausible ending. There's a brief shot of some severed toes, a bit of blood splatter, a very tame scene in which someone gets a shard of glass stuck in their mouth, someone gets a drill in his eyeball & the best kill when a cop tries to climb over the fence & is impaled on the fencing spikes. Charisma Carpenter keeps her clothes on throughout & quite frumpy they are too. Forget about the really cool looking monster on the DVD/Blu-ray artwork as showcased by the IMDb on the House of Bones main page, it's in the film for about ten seconds & there's never a full body shot of it either, just a few brief quick flashes before it disappears back down the well. Don't be fooled like I was, hell I was ripped-off but you don't have to be. The entire film is brightly lit & mainly set in the day in a fairly small hose which does not to build tension, suspense or atmosphere.
Filmed in Crowley & Lafayette in Louisiana this has pretty good production values actually, it looks reasonably good to be fair to it. The acting is so-so, it's not laugh out loud terrible but not exactly great either.
House of Bones is the first film I have brought blind in years in the sense that I didn't check any online reviews or anything & was suckered in by a nice box, I feel cheated & even buying a cheap second hand copy I feel ripped-off & disappointed. Not as terrible as some SyFy Channel films but I'd rather have watched it for free than spend good money on it.