Watch The House on Pine Street For Free

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Luke (Taylor Bottles) and Jennifer (Emily Goss) move back to her Kansas home town after an incident in Chicago which leads us to believe Jennifer is mentally unstable. Her condescending mother Meridith (Cathy Barnett) is eager to help out her resisting daughter. Soon there are ghosts, but they only seem to effect Jennifer, who also has issues outside of the house. They drag the ghost story on way too long until I thought this was going to be a Rosemary's Baby film which would have been better than where this went, which was nowhere.The ghosts are explained by Walter, the atheist (Jim Korinke) in a confusing mess that even Jennifer couldn't buy. The ghost seemed to center around the bedroom closet, whose door doesn't fit the door seal due to house settling. And what was with the mute neighbors? Was that supposed to tie into something? Guide: 1 F-word. No sex or nudity.

It is hard to believe that this film is rated as highly as it is. The film has some basic jumps and scares - standard fare in any horror film, but the film seriously lacks any type of plot or story line. I actually wonder how this film received any financial backing given that the story is so weak. The plot can be summarised as follow: Pregnant woman and hubby move into house, creepy stuff happens, the end. There is no explanation given at any point as to what was going on in the house, or why the house was haunted. There is no plot twist or sense of building suspense or dramatic conclusion. Auxiliary characters just serve to eat up minutes of the film with pointless conversations and details that are not followed up. It is a frustrating experience. You wait for the director to take you on a scary journey, but ultimately all threads lead nowhere. The whole haunted house genre has been done to death, and you can find much more effective examples than this one. Rated 3 for some spooky parts only, but the rest is discardable stereotypical junk.

All over the Internet I've seen countless awards for this movie, a lot of positive reviews about it and this is completely baffling for me, going as far as to make me think that I've seen a different movie. I can't understand how is this production so praised, when almost every tense moment was nothing if not predictable, when the acting of most of the actors was not only visibly uninspired, but also irritating (I could barely stand the scenes where Jennifer's mother was featured). Besides this, I cannot cope with the fact that I have watched a ghost movie WITH NO ACTUAL GHOST featured in it. Also, the ending, with the "energy" explanation is so far-fetched and rushed, I felt it ruined the already bad impression I've had. The death of her husband was completely unnecessary, it felt misplaced, not to mention the almost full recovery of Jennifer from it in a matter of days. The plot in its entirety was a generic haunted house story, with no original aspects save for the actors, basically I felt as if I was watching another episode of "A Haunting", although I am inclined to appreciate the show a lot more for ACTUALLY FEATURING GHOSTS in it. I tend to believe the movie was biased for being successfully funded through Kickstarter. Other than that, there is a single way to describe this production : Unconvincing and generic.

Eerie, atmospheric and at times genuinely unsettling, its a respectable addition to the haunted house genre. The movie is probably a little too long at just under two hours, but the viewers patience during the slow build up is rewarded with some chilling scenes, added to greatly by the movies creepy sound effects which are utilized extremely craftily. The lead actress, Emily Goss, does a fine job of portraying a tortured individual, akin to the mother in The Babadook, a very different type of haunted house flick. The film makers seem to have made the most of an obviously limited budget and for the most part avoid the usual clichés/tropes movies of a similar nature often surrender to.