The Disappointments Room (2016)

The Disappointments Room: Directed by D.J. Caruso. With Kate Beckinsale, Mel Raido, Duncan Joiner, Lucas Till. A mother and her young son release unimaginable horrors from the attic of their rural dream home.

“The Disappointments Room is a disappoi…u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSee what I did there? I delivered the exact line you expected only I half-a**ed it. That in a nutshell is The Disappointments Room; it sets itself up to deliver nothing but the bare minimum and then doesnu0026#39;t even deliver on that. I automatically assumed this film was less than a blip on the radar. A small budget, small minded, small expectation snoozefest comparable to this yearu0026#39;s The Other Side of the Door (2016). So imagine my surprise when the credits revealed the movie was directed by D.J. Caruso, the same guy who made Disturbia (2007). What the heck man? What the actual heck?u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe plot, for what itu0026#39;s worth, concerns itself with a small family of New Yorkers who have moved to the American South to renovate an old antebellum mansion. While touring the grounds Dana (Beckinsale) our intrepid architect, notices a part of the house thatu0026#39;s not in the actual blueprints. She prods further, locating the key to the room and deciding what the hay; letu0026#39;s open it up. What she doesnu0026#39;t know is the room also hides secrets that may anger the mansionu0026#39;s ghostly inhabitants and test the limits of her sanity.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film strains mightily to fit every basic haunted house cliché. They include but are not limited to: ghosts standing behind their victims, toys magically appearing, elaborate apparition flashback mode and pets prematurely meeting their demise. Those clichés are then complimented with the sloppiest of editing and laziest of jump scares providing a movie completely lacking atmosphere. Whatu0026#39;s worse is this faded out dollhouse of a movie comes complete with a boring assemblage of shallow traits and neuroses masquerading as characters, which are thrown about with little regard for perspective, personality or motivation.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe most laughable of these paltry characters is Kate Beckinsale as Dana, whose lip-quivering mother in emotional recovery rings egregiously false. She saunters through scenes looking perturbed and has her share of bad dreams which is to be expected. Yet when the film reveals possible psychosis and carelessly lumbers towards a splashy confrontation, itu0026#39;s clear Beckinsale is drowning in a cesspool of offensively bad schizophrenia tropes.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis movie was not fun to watch…no surprise there. But itu0026#39;s also no fun to review. Thereu0026#39;s nothing resembling the ponderous hubris of Warner Brosu0026#39;s DCEU or the desperate u0026quot;love me, pleaseu0026quot; attitude of Independence Day: Resurgence (2016). Thereu0026#39;s no hilariously bad reasoning like in Godu0026#39;s Not Dead 2 (2016) or drive-by bellicose like in 13 Hours (2016). The Disappointments Room is the movie equivalent of flat skunk beer. Any processes that were once teaming with life are now dead and baking in the sun, making your patio smell like cat p***.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eNothing happens in this film. There are no consequences to sift through, no conclusions to be drawn, no lessons to be learned. If the opposite of love isnu0026#39;t hate but indifference, than the fact that I left this movie feeling nothing should be a testament to just how bad this thing is.”