It's always a warning sign when a film bypasses cinema release to go straight on TV, so when THE HAUNTING OF RADCLIFFE HOUSE (original title: ALTAR) appeared on UK TV on Boxing Day I knew something was up. And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be very bad indeed: a complete rip-off of a film made by people with no understanding of how the ghost story genre works.
The film features a pair of past-it actors (Olivia Williams and Matthew Modine) as a married couple who move into a creepy old mansion in the Yorkshire moors with their bratty kids. Unsurprisingly, the place is haunted, and the haunting takes the most obvious route imaginable: dumb ghost scares ripped off from THE GRUDGE, a possession straight out of THE SHINING, and a myriad other scenes ripped off from elsewhere. When the film does try something new (like a ghostly encounter in broad daylight) it just falls flat.
The production values are acceptable here, but the level of cliché is just too high for it to be enjoyable. The grey filter cinematography has been done to death, the performances are shrill and histrionic (and Williams just CANNOT carry a movie) and the scares silly. Oddly, much of this seems to have been copied from an old favourite of mine, the '90s-era video horror game PHANTASMAGORIA, except without the fun factor. Throw in some dodgy historical rumblings and an equally dodgy cameo from SIGHTSEERS star Steve Oram and you have a complete train wreck of a movie. M. R. James would be spinning in his grave...
