DREAM HOUSE
(PG-13)
MOVIE: **1/2 (out of 5)
BLU-RAY EXPERIENCE: ** (out of 5)
BY KEVIN CARR
A disturbing trend in movies recently (and I suppose it’s been going on for decades, though it just seems more prevalent now) is to spoil much – or all – of the plot in the trailers. Without watching the trailers for “Dream House,” you’ll have a better experience simply because the trailer gives away 95 percent of the film – including critical plot twists and surprises.
Watching it again with a more sober eye, already knowing what’s coming from seeing the film before, it’s not terrible. The story follows a man named Will (Daniel Craig), who is coming home to work on a book. He discovers there’s some mysterious people stalking the house, which leads him to dig into some uncomfortable areas of his past.
Taken as a direct-to-DVD thriller, “Dream House” works. It wasn’t necessarily worthy of a wide release in theaters, but with the all-star cast, it needed to go there. Like I said, “Dream House” is best experienced completely cold. There are some nice, thrilling moments. However, much of the story – including all the spoiled plot twists from the trailer – are still pretty doggoned predictable.
The Blu-ray comes with limited bonus content, mainly in the form of behind-the-scenes featurettes. These include “Burning Down the House” about the climactic fire moments, “The Dream Cast” about the actors, “Building the Dream House” about the set construction and “A Look Inside” which is a basic making-of mini-doc. There is also access to BD-Live and the pocketBLU app.