Grindstone Road (2008) User Reviews

Not good or bad...it just is

[Heislegend · 4/10 · 22 May 2008]

Grindstone Road is one of those forgettable but not altogether bad ghost story flicks that are about a dime a dozen. I say "ghost story" instead of "horror" because I don't think there's anything anyone would find even remotely scary going on here, but it still manages to worm it's way into what most people would consider a horror flick. Hey...if you can pass off The Messengers as a horror flick then the sky's wide open.

The movie starts with our protagonist Hannah (Balk) having a flashback to a car accident that left her son in a coma. Now you might be tempted to think the accident is why Balk looks so awkward throughout the rest of the film, but then you remember that she's always looked that way. I swear, it looks like someone slammed a tennis ball into her mouth and she just left it there. It's really borderline distracting. Ugh. Oh...and a side note...when going to visit your vegetable son in the hospital it's probably bad form to wear high-heeled hooker boots. Kinda makes it look like you're not really that interested. Just a thought. Anyway...moving on.

After becoming painfully aware of the movie's subplot (the accident and ensuing drama) via way too many flashback sequences, we see Balk and her husband move out to the country to start over...which seems weird because their kid isn't really dead, he's just comatose. Way to be great parents. Long story short the new house plays tricks on Hannah's mind (but only her...how predictable) and her husband starts to think she's nuts until all is made clear in an ending so anti-climactic and out of left field you'll wonder what the hell the last hour and twenty minutes were about. I mean, it all ties together and you saw it coming, but it still seems pretty lame and off topic.

The cast isn't bad and the director does a good job of making the house as creepy as possible, but the movie just never really gets to where it wants to go. Or maybe it does and I just didn't care. Either way I'd say this is a fair bet if you've got nothing better to do/watch. Might not be a bad way to waste a Sunday afternoon. Then again, that can be said for a whole lot of movies that aren't very good.

Not so bad.

[manou-90798 · 6/10 · 19 April 2022]

This film is certainly not very original, but it does not deserve to be so badly rated. It is a completely honest ghost movie. Nothing spectacular, but I wasn't bored. It will please the lovers of haunted houses.

Verdict: Simple Ghost Story

[MoviesReviews101 · 5/10 · 29 November 2014]

Story: A couple moves to get over a family tragedy in this case an accident that leaves their son in a coma. The wife feels guiltier as she was driving and struggles with her own sanity. The husband is trying to get on with life and support his wife but is getting tired of it. Everything has been built up for a basic drama but this is a horror. As the wife is more vulnerable she starts getting visited by a ghost child, which does the usual scares her first but in reality wants her help to discover what happened to him. The story tries to throw in a few twists and turns but with very limited characters introduced it struggles to really surprise us. It is a simple ghost story that is easy to watch but really isn't anything standing out. (5/10)

Actor Review

Fairuza Balk: Hannah who has been involved in an accident leaving her son in a coma, she is stuck suffering for what happened but she starts getting visited by a ghostly figure of a young boy. Once she realizes the house they moved into might be haunted she tries to figure out about its history only to discover the boy was murdered in the house. Good performance in the simple investigator role. (6/10)

Greg Bryk: Graham husband to Hannah who is trying to put the life back together and accepting their son will not wake up from his coma. He struggles to cope with everything that is happening with his wife but tries to support the best he can. Simple supporting performance. (4/10)

Walter Learning: Ted a neighbour who helps with the renovation of the house, but reluctant to tell much about the history of the house. Basic supporting performance. (5/10)

Joan Gregson: Linda partner of the neighbour who tries to make them all feel welcome, but also reluctant to talk about the houses history. Another basic supporting performance. (5/10)

Director Review: Melanie Orr – Simple ghost story created with the ABC moments for the character to go through. (5/10)

Horror: No real scares used at all, but the basic ghost story told. (4/10)

Settings: New house good setting for ghost story but otherwise nothing used that is that special. (7/10)

Suggestion: If you are bored and this is on one night give it a try otherwise this isn't one to be going out of your way to see. (Late Night TV)

Best Part: Creepy Toy?

Worst Part: No real thrills of scares.

Believability: No (0/10)

Chances of Tears: No (0/10)

Chances of Sequel: No

Post Credits Scene: No

Oscar Chances: No

Runtime: 1 Hour 33 Minutes

Tagline: There goes the neighbourhood

Overall: Ghost Story without scares

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Incredibly inept

[Ripshin · 5 July 2008]

Bad writing, bad direction, bad editing, bad acting. It has it all. Frankly, I enjoy a good low budget feature, but I can't tolerate a strung-together series of the most clichéd scenes imaginable. Wandering into a dark basement alone at night? Make-you-jump loud sounds, in lieu of true scares? A husband who doesn't believe his stressed-out wife? The ol' disappearing "evil water" routine? And that in just the first thirty minutes.

And, what's with the fade-to-black between scenes? It's amateurish and distracting.

The set-dressing is horrible. It calls attention to itself in almost every location.

Frankly, I couldn't finish the film. A "script supervisor" position is obviously not the best experience for direction, just as a "sound editor" most likely has no business jumping into writing screenplays.

There's a reason this waste of time went directly to video, although I assume that was the intention from the beginning.

Really dull supernatural thriller.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 3 March 2012]

Grindstone Rd. starts as Hannah Sloan (Fairuza Balk) visits her comatose son Daniel (Felix Pennall) in hospital, Daniel has been in a coma for about a year after a car accident in which Hannah was driving & as a result she blames herself for his condition. Hannah drives out to her childhood town of Evansville where an large old house on Grindstone Road is for sale, it's rundown & needs attention but Hannah falls in love with it & together with her psychiatrist husband Graham (Greg Bryk) moves in. Standing in the middle of a wood the Sloan's nearest neighbour's are elderly old couple Linda (Joan Gregson) & Ted Jenkins (Walter Learning) who seem friendly enough, however they seem nervous when inside the Sloan's house & Hannah soon discovers that many years ago a young boy named Daniel who lived there went missing & that the man who was accused of killing him committed suicide in the basement. Soon Hannah starts to experience supernatural visions & happenings as the house appears haunted by Daniel who seems to be trying to communicate with Hannah, if only someone would believe her...

This Canadian production was directed by Melanie Orr & is a pretty dull supernatural drama thriller with little to recommend it, films like Grindstone Rd. are a dime a dozen & this dreary effort adds nothing new to the clichés & routine formula. The script is strictly by the numbers, someone with emotional issues moves into a big old creepy house & starts to experience supernatural visions & happenings as a ghost who suffered in life tries to communicate with said new owner & right the wrongs that they suffered, Grindstone Rd. is totally predictable & I saw the so-called twist ending coming a mile off since I have seen so many of these lacklustre rip-offs before & know the deal. Grindstone Rd. starts off alright, it introduces our character's in a semi mysterious way with various flashbacks & quickly cut scenes that don't seem to go anywhere (Hannah walking into a hospital room & then suddenly cutting to another scene for instance) that I suppose was meant to create some suspense but once the script switches to the old house & the plot starts to be revealed things go downhill fast. Virtually nothing happens, sure Hannah hears voices, sees a few ghostly images & rather randomly decides to investigate the disappearance of Daniel but it plods along at a Snail's pace & becomes extremely boring. The character's are dull, the events of the film are dull, the basic mystery surrounding the supernatural occurrences is dull & I found the 90 minute running time pretty hard to get through. I suppose if you like ghost stories in particular then you may like Grindstone Rd. as it's competent if forgettable but I just found the whole thing a predictable bore with a really annoying happier than happy ending.

The low body count doesn't help either, in fact there isn't a body count as no-one is killed except the evil doers who the ghost wants revenge on & even then it's more in a self defence scenario rather than pure hate driven revenge. There's zero gore, there's a bath scene with no nudity & the scares are pretty tame. There are one or two nice shots here but overall Grindstone Rd. is forgettable on all levels. To call Grindstone Rd. a horror film is stretching things to be honest, even though it has a ghost in it I'd say it's more of a psychological thriller. Quite why Hannah feels she can solve the decades old mystery of Daniel disappearing when all the cops at the time couldn't I don't know & why did the killers who murdered Daniel all those years ago move out of the house & literally a few hundred feet down the road?

Filmed in Hamilton in Ontario in Canada this has decent enough production values is is reasonably well made although it's fairly basic & not much to look at visually. The acting is alright, Balk is quite good I suppose if I want to be positive.

Grindstone Rd. is a really dull ghost story, it's predictable & at 90 minutes long it takes forever to go nowhere in particular. There are better ways to waste an hour & a half, also what's up with the DVD cover? Sure it's great with dripping blood & an eerie looking house in a misty setting but doesn't represent the film at all, it's like they say though 'never judge a book by it's cover'.

Seen it all before, and then some

[Leofwine_draca · 3/10 · 26 September 2016]

Another cheap haunted house movie that comes to us from Canada. This is a cookie-cutter filmmaking experience with dark and gloomy cinematography and a cast who feel that their hearts aren't really in it. Fairuza Balk (THE CRAFT), unrecognisably aged, plays a grieving housewife whose son has been left in a coma after a car accident. She's heavily medicated and starts experiencing weird visions.

You can guess the rest from here. It's another is-she-going-out-of-her-mind-or-isn't-she? type plot of the kind which has been done to death over and over again throughout the years. This low budget tale brings nothing new to the table. Balk is dull and the rest of the cast even duller. The scenes of her being menaced by a CGI-faced kid are laughable. The director throws in some clichéd jump scares to startle the viewer and the story finishes with the silliest twist ever. GRINDSTONE ROAD? A grind to watch, more like.

An awful bore

[mherrin-43253 · 2/10 · 27 May 2018]

Grindstone Road: Directed by Melanie Orr and written by Paul Germann

Grindstone Road is another movie where a couple after having suffered a tragedy moving from the great big city to a country home with a devastating secret. You've seen this movie before probably about a million different times. Fairuza Balk is the only reason this movie was even on my radar.

I have put a moratorium on movies like this. I think I've seen enough movies like this to last me a very long time. This is a by the book ordinary film trying to be creepy and failing miserably in the process. We were able to guess every little thing that happened throughout this dull and generic mess.

I'm not sure what time period this is designed to take place in but it features the usual staples of landline phones not working out in the country, going to the library to look at old newspapers rather than searching for these very same things online. This is what most of us would do now. This is why I think it must be in a different time period. I imagine the writer might be trying to bring back this type of story. I wish they hadn't and also wish they hadn't drug Fairuza Balk into this boring nonsense.

The visual style of the movie is very flat. Nothing really pops out until the scenes in the afterlife but even then it's rudimentary. They try for those jump scares but fail immensely. Every type of scare it attempts flops horribly. The main thing about this story is the atmosphere and they can't even figure this one out. This movie is a dull, lazy and boring mess. Skip it.

I give this movie a D.

Doesn't even rise to the level of a made-for-TV movie

[makleen2 · 2/10 · 7 October 2017]

A young couple moves into an old farmhouse, only to experience a series of strange events. Is the ghost of a missing child reaching out for help from beyond the grave? In capable hands, Grindstone Road (2008), written by Paul Germann and directed by Melanie Orr, had the potential to be an entertaining (if not very original) horror film. Unfortunately, it doesn't even rise to the level of a made-for-TV movie.

Melanie Orr is a script supervisor (oversees a film's continuity) who has directed episodes for a number of television shows. Grindstone Road was her sophomore effort. Paul Germann is a sound effects editor who has written a grand total of one film. Grindstone Road must have been so bad he never got another script optioned. It was like he had a weird dream and decided to make a movie out of it.

Somehow they tricked Fairuza Balk into starring in their clichéd and mediocre Canadian horror film. Balk appeared in some popular movies in the '90s, including The Craft (1996), American History X (1998), and The Waterboy (1998), then dropped off the public's radar. She always embraced "alternative" roles, and wears a goth-ish outfit for one scene in this movie, but otherwise plays a conventional housewife. That's like asking Jackson Pollock to paint an idyllic country cottage. It's just not right.

As bad as Grindstone Road is, at least it has an interesting story. Wracked with guilt over a car accident that left her son Daniel (Felix Pennell) in a deep coma, Hannah (Fairuza Balk) begins having strange experiences in her new home. Her husband, Graham (Greg Bryk), is oblivious and blames the antidepressants she takes to help ease the pain. Their neighbors, an elderly couple named Ted (Walter Learning) and Linda (Joan Gregson), alert them to the possibility their house is haunted.

Hannah discovers a young boy, also named Daniel (Dylan Authors), disappeared while living in the house and may have been abused by his parents. John Dodson (Zachary Bennett), a mysterious man who only Hannah can see, serves as a red herring to deflect attention from the real villains. Since there are only a handful of characters, you can probably guess who they are. It was refreshing to see elderly antagonists, although the religious motivation behind their crimes is eye-rolling.

With a budget of $1.5 million, there's really no excuse for the film to be this bad. Daniel's character looks like they slapped flour and black lipstick on his face. There are plenty of examples of decent horror movies with ghosts that look like regular people. They could have used context clues, lighting, or even an interesting costume to indicate he was a ghost, anything but this awful makeup. John Dodson is also a ghost, but goes makeup-free. I guess that's to trick the audience into thinking he's a living, breathing character.

There is one captivating scene in which Hannah struggles to get out of a noose while hanging from the basement rafter. It looks real and it looks like Fairuza Balk did the scene herself.

Filmmakers treat the horror genre as an excuse to make low quality films, and this check-the-box ghost story is no exception. Despite veteran leads (Greg Bryk also appeared in A History of Violence, Shoot 'Em Up, and a number of TV shows), Grindstone Road is the Halloween equivalent of a Hallmark Channel Christmas story. It currently has an 18 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and you can watch it for free on YouTube.

CHEESE

[armadilla17 · 2/10 · 4 April 2020]

Omg probably the most cheesest ending to any movie I have ever watched, I almost threw up. Plot hole in the likes of Obi Wan not remembering C3PO and R2D2. Not sure if that could be considered a spoiler. Horrible music and did I mention CHEESE.

Good movie , entertaining way much better than some big screen movies

[anubis197 · 7/10 · 25 June 2019]

I have read some negative reviews and I am surprised because this movie is Good . It is entertaining , it has great acting , some scary scenes . I am used to bad low budget movies from prime and Usually don't click on them but when I saw the name Fairukza Balk , I did because I always admired her and think she has great acting skills . Negative reviewers are just haters , who knows why. Watch it , and form your own opinion . Most thriller movies have similar stories but they are good nonetheless.

Yet another GOOD movie undeservedly panned by IMDb "experts"

[SashaDarko · 8/10 · 29 May 2015]

While the story is so-so and has all the unnecessary clichés, it played out pretty well and not mind-numbingly stupid like most Hollywood flicks.

The acting is great (especially the performance of Fairuza Balk), actors behave like actual real people, you won't find any stupid blond chicks running around and screaming all the time. Cast is also great, actors really fit their roles. Directing and editing are well done. Soundtrack does it job, but can't say you will remember it.

I guess it can't be "all time favorite" movie, but it's certainly recommended for rental or having in collection.