| Rose Red (miniseries) | |
|---|---|
DVD cover |
|
| Written by | Stephen King |
| Directed by | Craig R. Baxley |
| Starring | Nancy Travis Matt Keeslar Julian Sands Kimberly J. Brown David Dukes Judith Ivey Melanie Lynskey Matt Ross Kevin Tighe Julia Campbell Emily Deschanel Laura Kenny Tsidii Leloka Yvonne Sciò Jimmi Simpson |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Thomas H. Brodek Robert F. Phillips |
| Cinematography | David Connell |
| Running time | 240 min. |
| Distributor | ABC Trimark Video (USA DVD) Warner Home Video (international DVD) |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer |
Rose Red (also known as Stephen King's Rose Red) is a television miniseries scripted by horror novelist Stephen King. The series was premiered in the United States on ABC on January 27, 2002. The story involves a cavernous Seattle mansion called Rose Red, which is investigated by parapsychologist Dr. Joyce Reardon and a team of psychics.
Contents |
Dr. Joyce Reardon, an unorthodox university psychology professor, leads a team of psychics to the massive and antiquated Seattle mansion known as Rose Red in an attempt to record data which would constitute scientific proof of paranormal phenomena. The mansion is publicly thought to be haunted, as at least 23 people have either disappeared or died there and the interior of the house appears to change or increase in size. Reardon's team unleashes the spirit of the house, leading to several deaths and the revelation of the mansion's secrets.
According to information revealed at various points in the miniseries, Rose Red was built in 1906 by wealthy oilman John Rimbauer for his wife, Ellen. Rimbauer used much of his wealth to build the mansion, which was in the Tudor-Gothic style and situated on 40 acres (160,000 m2) of woodland in the heart of Seattle on the site of a Native American burial ground. The house was rumored to be cursed even as it was being constructed; three construction workers were killed on the site, and a construction foreman was murdered by a co-worker.
While honeymooning in Africa, Ellen Rimbauer fell ill (from an unspecified sexually transmitted disease given to her by her husband) and made the acquaintance of Sukeena, a local tribeswoman. The two women became very close while Sukeena nursed Ellen back to health, and Sukeena accompanied the Rimbauers back to the newly-completed Rose Red. The Rimbauers had two children, Adam and April (born with a withered arm), but Ellen quickly became unhappy with her marriage to her philandering and neglectful husband. Deaths and mysterious disappearances became more commonplace at the house. One of John Rimbauer's friends died of a bee sting in the solarium, while his business partner (whom Rimbauer had cheated out of his share of the oil company's profits) hanged himself in front of Rimbauer's children. Eight-year-old April also disappeared in the house, and Sukeena was tortured by the police after being suspected of her murder. John Rimbauer appeared to commit suicide by throwing himself from an upper window (although viewers of the miniseries later learn that he was murdered by Ellen and Sukeena).
Ellen and Sukeena continued to live in the house after John Rimbauer's death. After a spiritualist seance, Ellen came to believe that if she continued to build and expand the house, she would never die. She used nearly all of her dead husband's fortune to continually add to the home over the next several decades, enlarging it significantly. The mysterious disappearances continued to occur, however, and both Ellen Rimbauer and Sukeena eventually disappeared in Rose Red.
For several years after Ellen's disappearance, only servants occupied Rose Red. Adam Rimbauer, who inherited the house, lived there for a short time with his wife. However, he abandoned Rose Red after witnessing several paranormal events. After his death and with the family fortune spent away, his wife sold off many of the home's antique furnishings, and generated some income by permitting the fictional "Seattle Historical Society" to give tours of the house. These tours ceased in 1972, after a participant disappeared while on a tour of the mansion. Investigations for paranormal phenomena were conducted on the property in the 1960s and 1970s. But these also ended, and the house fell into disrepair.
The miniseries begins in the year 2001. Steven Rimbauer, the great grandson of John and Ellen Rimbauer, has inherited Rose Red. He has been offered a substantial sum of money to have the house torn down and the site developed into condominiums. But he is intrigued by the paranormal history of the house, and has agreed to allow one more investigation of the mansion.
The miniseries opens with a prologue set in 1991. The young autistic girl Annie Wheaton (played as a child by Kristen Fischer and later as a teenager by Kimberly J. Brown) is drawing a picture of a house as her parents and older sister, Rachel (Melanie Lynskey), argue outside her room. As she draws lines down over the house in her picture, rocks fall through the roof of an identical house belonging to an elderly couple down the street whose dog had bitten Annie, severely damaging the building.
The setting now switches to 2001. Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis) is a professor at the fictional Beaumont University who teaches classes on psychic phenomena. Kevin Bollinger (Jimmi Simpson), a reporter for the campus newspaper, sceptically questions her about a trip she will be taking to Rose Red, an ostensibly haunted and abandoned mansion in nearby Seattle. Professor Carl Miller (David Dukes), Joyce's departmental chair who questions the validity of Joyce's research, orders Bollinger to follow Reardon and spy on a meeting with the group of psychics she is taking to Rose Red. The group includes Victor "Vic" Kandinsky (Kevin Tighe), an elderly precognate with heart disease; Pam Asbury (Emily Deschanel), a young psychometric; Cathy Kramer (Judith Ivey), a middle-aged automatic writer; Nick Hardaway (Julian Sands), a telepath with remote viewing capabilities; and Emery Waterman (Matt Ross), a young post-cognate. The group meets with Steven Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar), the last descendent of Ellen (Julia Campbell) and John Rimbauer (John Procaccino), in an auditorium at the college. Bollinger takes a photo of the group joining hands in a circle, and the photo and an article ridiculing Reardon are published in the campus newspaper. Dr. Miller takes Bollinger to Rose Red and drops him off, instructing him to obtain additional embarrassing photos once the group of psychics arrives. Kevin is greeted by Sukeena (Tsidii Le Loka) at the front door, who tells him that he is expected. Not realizing she is a ghost, Bollinger enters the mansion. He becomes trapped in the solarium, where he is pulled off-screen by an unseen force.
The back-stories of psychics Emery Waterman and Annie Wheaton are introduced. Emery Waterman is a rude, sarcastic, and obnoxious young man under the control of his domineering mother, Patricia Waterman (Laura Kenny). The audience learns that Rachel Wheaton now cares for Annie Wheaton, who rarely speaks and who refers to Rachel as "Sister." The audience also learns that Dr. Reardon is having a sexual affair with Steven Rimbauer, although the film remains unclear whether she loves him or is merely using him to gain access to Rose Red.
Joyce and the group of psychics (now joined by Rachel "Sister" Wheaton [Melanie Lynskey] and a teenaged Annie Wheaton [Kimberly J. Brown]) arrive at Rose Red. The team tours the mansion. Joyce and Steven point out that the home contains many optical illusions as well as an upside-down room and a library with a mirrored floor. The team finds Bollinger's cell phone, and Steven calls Miller to confront him over his attempt to discredit the group. That night, Emery sees the ghost of an actress that disappeared from the house decades earlier; Pam dreams of the decomposing body of Kevin Bollinger; the Wheaton sisters are visited by a ghost under the bed and in the closet; and Cathy sees something moving under the carpet and her blankets. Later in the night, Pam is lured outside into the garden.
The next morning, Dr. Miller receives a mysterious voicemail message from Steven saying that Bollinger slit his wrists and wrote Miller's name in his blood before expiring. A message that clealy was not sent by Stephen but a trap set up by Rose Red and its inhabitants. Alarmed, Miller drives to the mansion. Patricia Waterman, too, has driven to the mansion after being unable to reach her son via cell phone. The two arrive simultaneously, and their cars collide in the driveway when Mrs. Waterman swerves to avoid what she believes to be a figure running across the road. Terrified, Mrs. Waterman begins to run through the forest on the grounds of the mansion while calling for her son. Miller, wanting to get her insurance information, pursues her. Inside Rose Red, Emery hears his mother's cries but dismisses them as an auditory illusion created by the haunted house.
On the other side of the house, Pam leads Vic into the garden toward a pond with a statue of Ellen in it. She suddenly disappears. When Vic looks down into the pond, he sees what he believes to be Pam's dead body. He attempts to pull her out of the water, but the body vanishes and he is left clutching only her nightgown. He panics and runs back toward the house. Looking back, he sees the statue come to life and has a heart attack. Vic tries to draw the attention of Emery (who is inside the house), but Emery again believes this to be an apparition and refuses to open the window. Nick arrives and tries to open the window, but it will not open and the glass cannot be broken. Vic collapses and dies in full view of Emery and Nick. Out in the woods, Mrs. Waterman is stopped and knocked unconscious by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger.
Annie Wheaton has discovered a dollhouse that is a replica in miniature of Rose Red. While standing on a chair in an attempt to reach the dollhouse, she falls and is knocked unconscious. Rachel Wheaton and Steven Rimbauer see her fall and attempt to render first aid. Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, Rose Red's windows and doors mysteriously open again. Emery Waterman, realizing that his mother's screams were not an illusion, rushes outside to look for his mother. He runs into Dr. Miller, who warns him to stay away and then flees. Emery chases Miller but cannot catch him, so he returns to Rose Red. Miller, continuing to frantically run around the grounds of the house, is found and attacked by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger.
Emery attempts to convince the others that they should all leave. They refuse, and Emery tries to depart on his own. As he does so, he runs into the ghosts of Pam Asbury and Deanna Petrie (Yvonne Sciò), the movie star who vanished in the house in the 1940s. Emery has the power to make apparitions disappear by repeating the phrase "not there," and avoids the deadly fate of his mother and Dr. Miller. As Emery is about to leave Rose Red, Annie Wheaton wakes and via psychokinesis causes the doors of Rose Red to slam shut. Emery's hand is caught in the door, and some of his fingers are severed. While the others assist Emery, Joyce Reardon asks Annie to continue to keep the doors and windows sealed, promising to give her the dollhouse if she does so. Steven, however, soon discovers that he is able to communicate with Annie telepathically, and she begins to form a friendship with him.
Later, Steven relives some repressed memories of a visit to the house with his drunken mother during which a ghostly Ellen Rimbauer appeared to him and called on Steven to aid her in continuing Rose Red's unending construction. Emery, meanwhile, suspects that Annie, not some "spirit of Rose Red", is keeping the house sealed. Nick confirms Emery's suspicions, and then informs the group that Kevin Bollinger appeared to have hanged himself in the library. The group begins to speculate that Rose Red has never been in a dormant state, and that the mansion's supernatural powers are linked to Annie and Steven (whose psychic abilities become apparent only when he is in the house because of his familial connection to the property). Nick correctly guesses that Joyce brought the psychics to the house in an attempt to reawaken Rose Red rather than simply investigate it.
The wounded Emery suggests that Annie be killed in order to allow everyone to escape, alarming the rest of the group. While in the kitchen, Cathy Kramer is attacked by Mrs. Waterman and is rescued by Nick. The two decide to tie up the deranged woman and decide to leave her in the kitchen. They agree not to inform Emery so that the unstable young man does not become more unbalanced. A ghostly Sukeena appears and drags Mrs. Waterman off into the dark wine cellar. As Nick and Cathy head back toward the main hall, the house changes around them and they become lost. A mysterious shape under the carpet chases them, and they flee. The shape begins to catch up to them, and Nick shoves Cathy into a room and slams the door behind her, turning around just in time to see a skeletal monster rushing up to him. With silence in the hallway, Cathy opens the door again but finds no sign of Nick or the entity in the empty hallway. As the house continues to change around her, Cathy ends up in the attic. Suddenly overcome by the urge to automatically write, she witnesses the murder of John Rimbauer by Ellen and Sukeena. Steven and Rachel, meanwhile, decide to look for Nick and Cathy. They find Cathy in the attic, where she is about to be attacked by a corpse-like creature. Their presence seemingly prevents the house from acting, and the corpse drops lifeless to the floor. The corpse's withered arm lets them deduce that the carcass is that of Steven's missing great-aunt (and Ellen's daughter), April Rimbauer.
The group reunites in the main hall. Emery attempts to attack Annie with a fireplace poker. Using psychokinesis, Annie animates a suit of armor and attempts to kill Emery with a halberd. Neither attack succeeds, and Joyce calms both individuals. In an attempt to uncover the secret of Rose Red, Steve creates a telepathic link between Cathy and Annie, and Cathy begins to engage in automatic writing. Annie begins to draw pictures of boulders striking the house, smashed doors, and broken glass, and soon doors and windows all over the house are opening and closing violently and glass in the windows shatters. Rocks begin to fall, destroying Mrs. Waterman's car and causing severe damage to Rose Red. Cathy automatically writes "help us" and "open the doors," prompting Annie to unseal the house. Steven, Emery, Cathy, Rachel, and Annie make their escape from Rose Red, but Joyce, now clearly insane, refuses to leave. The group is attacked by the spectre of Ellen Rimbauer, but Annie prevents Ellen from coming after them. Mrs. Waterman's ghost leaps from a mirror and attempts to draw Emery into the spirit realm, but Emery, with the assistance of Steven and Cathy, resists his mother for the first time in his life, and Mrs. Waterman vanishes again. The survivors flee to their cars as boulders rain down on Rose Red. Back in the house, Joyce suddenly realizes too late that she does want to leave, but is surrounded by the ghosts of Rose Red: Nick, Pam, Vic, Ms. Waterman, Miller, Bollinger, Sukeena, Ellen Rimbauer, and Deanna Petrie. She screams in terror as the film fades to black.
Six months later, the survivors visit Rose Red, just before the mansion is due to be demolished and replaced by condominiums. It remains unsaid whether or not the evil that inhabits the house will leave with its destruction or go on to curse the condos. They pay their last respects to the dead by laying red roses on the path leading up to the house. As they drive away, music can be heard, and the ghosts of Ellen Rimbauer, Sukeena, and Joyce Reardon watch the survivors depart from the tower window.
| Name | Occupation | Psychic Power | Played By | Character's fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. Joyce Reardon | Parapsychology Professor | None | Nancy Travis | Killed by the ghosts of Ellen Rimbauer, Vic Kandinsky, Deanna Petrie, Patricia Waterman, Carl Miller, Kevin Bollinger, Sukeena, Nick Hardaway, and Pam Asbury. |
| Steven Rimbauer | Unknown | None at first; Telepathy only when inside Rose Red | Matt Keeslar | Survivor |
| Rachel "Sister" Wheaton | Waitress | None | Melanie Lynskey | Survivor |
| Annie Wheaton | Unknown | Telekinetic, Telepathic | Kimberly J. Brown | Survivor |
| Cathy Kramer | Unknown | Automatic Writing | Judith Ivey | Survivor |
| Emery Waterman | Unknown | Retrocognition | Matt Ross | Survivor, lost several fingers |
| Nick Hardaway | Psychologist | Telepathic, Remote Viewing | Julian Sands | Disappeared while saving Cathy, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Pam Asbury | Unknown | Psychometry | Emily Deschanel | Killed (seemingly drowned in pond while in a trance). |
| Victor "Vic" Kandinsky | Unknown | Precognitive | Kevin Tighe | Died of a heart attack. |
| Dr. Carl Miller | Psychology Department Head | None | David Dukes | Killed by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger. (David Dukes passed away from a heart attack while filming on location for the movie. The movie is therefore dedicated to him) |
| Patricia Waterman | Unknown | None | Laura Kenny | Killed by the ghost of Sukeena. |
| Kevin Bollinger | College Student/Newspaper Reporter | None | Jimmi Simpson | Killed off-screen by an unseen force. |
| Unknown | Pizza Delivery | None | Stephen King | Endures rudeness from the psychics |
| Name | Occupation | Psychic Power | Played By | Character's Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John P. Rimbauer | Oil tycoon | None | John Procaccino | Murdered (pushed from a tower window at Rose Red) by Ellen Rimbauer and Sukeena. |
| Ellen Gilchrist-Rimbauer | Homemaker | None | Julia Campbell | Disappeared while living at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Sukeena | Ellen Rimbauer's maid | None | Tsidii Le Loka | Disappeared while living at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Adam Rimbauer | Student | None | Justin T. Milner | Survivor |
| April Rimbauer | None | None | Paige Gordon | Disappeared while living at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Deanna Petrie | Actress and friend of Ellen Rimbauer | None | Yvonne Sciò | Disappeared while a guest at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Douglas Posey | John Rimbauer's former business partner | None | Don Alder | Hanged himself in front of the Rimbauer children. |
Stephen King has a brief cameo appearance as a pizza delivery man.[2]
Author Stephen King had always wanted to write a script about a haunted house, having been inspired by an alleged haunted house in his home town of Durham, Maine.[2]
King originally pitched Rose Red to Steven Spielberg as a feature film in the early 1990s, in part as a remake of the 1963 film The Haunting.[2][3][4][5] The project went into turnaround and a complete script was written, but Spielberg demanded more thrills and action sequences while King wanted more horror.[2][3][5] King and Spielberg mutually agreed to shelve the project after several years of work, with King buying back the rights to the script.[2][3] King returned to the project in 1999, completed a revised script, and unsuccessfully pitched the script to director Mick Garris (with whom King had worked on the 1992 film Sleepwalkers, the 1994 TV miniseries The Stand, and the 1997 TV miniseries The Shining).[3] King next proposed the project on Friday, June 18, 1999, to producer Mark Carliner (with whom King had worked on two miniseries, The Shining and 1999's Storm of the Century).[3][5][6] Carliner agreed to produce the script as a feature film, and King agreed to start script revisions on Monday, June 21,[3] but King was hit by an automobile while walking on a road near his home on Saturday, June 19, 1999.[7]
After surgery and a month's recovery in the hospital, King returned home and completed work on the Rose Red script over the next month, recasting the project as a television miniseries.[3][5] The writing proved to be therapeutic.
| “ | I was using the work as dope, basically, because it worked better than anything they were giving me to kill the pain. It was very difficult to push the pen 45 minutes a day, but it was vital to get back to work, because you have to break the ice somehow. You have to say, "This is what I do." I'm either going to continue to work, or I'm not. You say, "If I can do this, maybe I can walk. If I can walk, maybe I can resume some kind of human intercourse." Work seemed like a logical place to start.[5] | ” |
Several references are made in the script to other fictional works regarding ghosts, including The Haunting of Hill House, Ghostbusters, and A Christmas Carol. King based his concept for Rose Red on the Winchester Mystery House,[2][4][6][8] but added the concept that the house would keep expanding on the inside even though it looked the same from the outside.[5] Although the project was no longer intended to be an adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, the script continued to borrow heavily from Shirley Jackson's novel.[4][5][6] The team of researchers strongly resembles that assembled in Jackson's novel, and the rain of rocks is identical to one described in Jackson's story.[4][5]
The action originally was set in Los Angeles, California.[6] Pre-production began in July 2000.[3] After a five-month search, the producers discovered Thornewood Castle in Lakewood, Washington, and secured permission to use the mansion as the facade of Rose Red.[2][3] King subsequently rewrote the script and set the action in Seattle, Washington, to accommodate the change.[3][6] The production paid $500,000 to have many of the rooms on the first floor of Thornewood restored to their early 20th century state for filming of the miniseries.[5][9][10] Dead trees and dead ivy were used to make Thornewood appear abandoned.[6][11]
The production team included producers Carliner, Thomas H. Brodek, and Robert F. Phillips; director Craig R. Baxley; production designer Craig Stearns; and visual effects supervisor Stuart Robertson (who won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on the 1997 film What Dreams May Come).[2][5] These individuals and others had worked on Storm of the Century two years earlier.[2][5]
Filming began on August 22, 2000, and ended in mid-December 2000.[3] The budget for the miniseries was originally $3 million,[3] but its final cost was closer to $35 million.[5][11] The computer-operated ghost puppets created by XFX cost $150,000 each.[5] Interior sets were built in three former airplane hangars at the abandoned Sand Point Naval Base in Seattle.[3][11] More than 200,000 square feet (19,000 m2) of interior sets were built.[2] The largest set contained a full-scale version of the great hall at Rose Red, including a fireplace, columns, grand staircase, adjacent dining hall, and doorway to the solarium (the last being a feature inspired by the Shirley Jackson novel).[5] Two bedrooms and the billiard room at Thornewood Castle were used for location shots.[5] Sadly, actor David Dukes died of a heart attack on October 11, 2000, in Spanaway, Washington, while shooting Rose Red.[12] He was due to film his death scene the following day.[2][6] A double was used for shots of the Dr. Carl Miller character running through foliage, and King rewrote some scenes to feature other characters instead of Miller.[2] The intersection of Spring Street and Sixth Avenue in Seattle was used for the fictional location of Rose Red; other Seattle locations used in the miniseries include a section of Main Street and a house on Capitol Hill (which is destroyed by a rain of stones in the miniseries).[5][6]
Post-production took six months, and the miniseries was delivered to the ABC television network in early September 2001.[3]
A $200,000 promotional marketing campaign for the miniseries began in November 2001.[3] Marketing of the film presented the movie as based on actual events. In 2000, two years before the miniseries aired, the producers contracted with author Ridley Pearson to write a tie-in novel, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red, under the pseudonym "Dr. Joyce Reardon" (one of the main characters of the miniseries).[4] The novel presented itself as nonfiction, and claimed to be the actual diary of Ellen Rimbauer (wife of the builder of Rose Red). The work was originally intended to be an architectural book featuring photos and drawings of the fictional Rose Red house with the supernatural elements subtly woven into the text and photos, but Pearson (building on several references to a diary in King's script) wrote it as Ellen Rimbauer's diary instead.[13] Inspired by the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project, King came up with the idea of presenting the novel as real by having "Dr. Joyce Reardon" edit the "diary."[13] King also inserted a reference into the book's forward that a "best-selling author had found the journal in Maine", so that fans would be misled into concluding that King had written the work.[13] The ruse worked. Fans and the press speculated for some time that Stephen King or his wife Tabitha King had written the book until Pearson was revealed to be the novel's author.[11] The companion novel was a big hit, rising high on several bestseller lists.[11] Intended to be a promotional item rather than a stand-alone work, its popularity spawned a 2003 prequel television miniseries to Rose Red, titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer.[11] The novel tie-in idea was repeated on Stephen King's next project, the miniseries Kingdom Hospital. Richard Dooling, King's collaborator on Kingdom Hospital and writer of several episodes in the miniseries, published a fictional diary, The Journals of Eleanor Druse, in 2004.[4][14]
A fictional website for Beaumont University (where Dr. Joyce Reardon, one of the main characters in the miniseries, taught parapsychology) was established. It provided information on the history of Rose Red, background on the Rimbauer family, and limited information on various disappearances at the mansion. The site is no longer functional,[15] but the site can still be seen through web archive programs such as the Wayback Machine.[16]
The marketing campaign was considered highly successful. Many readers came to believe that The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer was real.[13] The fake Beaumont University site was bombarded with emails from fans who were convinced that Dr. Joyce Reardon, Beaumont University, and Rose Red were real.[4]
The miniseries originally aired on the ABC broadcast television network in the United States on three nights, from January 27–29, 2002.[17]
A DVD, running 4 hours and 14 minutes, was released in 2007.
Rose Red, which aired during sweeps, was a ratings hit with an average of 18.5 million viewers over three nights and an 8.5 rating.[11]
Critical reception to the miniseries was mixed. The New York Times called it fun if not terribly original:
| “ | Most of the way, the cast, directed by Craig R. Baxley, show restraint (under the circumstances). Until they are overwhelmed by the inevitable unraveling of reason, Ms. Travis's Joyce and Mr. Sands's Nick are two people you would definitely want along the next time you bunk down in a ghostly manse. The production, including Stuart Robertson's visual effects, serves the story without overwhelming it. Rose Red is a clever tale to the end. You'll never be tempted to take it seriously. But if you let it hook you, you won't be tempted to turn it off.[17] | ” |
Another critic noted that, while the miniseries moves along "effectively," the effort seemed "padded to more than four hours" with "needless exposition ... and repetitious spookhouse sequences".[18] Daily Variety was more critical of the miniseries, however, noting that "All of the elements that make a King story so accessible and entertaining are missing from this production."[19] Daily Variety praised director Craig Baxley's direction, cinematographer David Connell's camera work, Craig Stearns' special effects and production design, and young actress Kimberly Brown's performance.[19] But the magazine concluded that the over-long script and "backstories, particularly the origin of the house, are so convoluted and ill conceived, even the best f/x can't save the day."[19] Critic Laura Fries had particularly severe criticism for actress Nancy Travis:
| “ | It's hard to say whether or not Travis is simply the wrong choice for Reardon or if she just took the wrong approach. For the entire mini, the actress grimaces like a rabid dog; her character frothing at the idea of recording psychic anomalies at the expense of everyone around her. Most important, however, she never convincingly demonstrates the kind of power of persuasion it takes to win over strangers to do her character's bidding.[19] | ” |
Other critics panned the screenplay as "dumbly, numbly entertaining pastiche" and "a strained struggle for cogent characters and a coherent story line", but praised the production for its sound, visual effects, music, and make-up.[20]
Other reviewers found little to praise in the miniseries, however. "Rose Red is a rambling wreck of a film...about as scary as a hangnail," said the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "...It is made-for-TV pablum, meant to satisfy unsophisticated palates the way restaurants make ordinary food seem appetizing with highfalutin menus."[21] USA Today focused on what it felt was a poor story and slow pacing: "...a numbingly predictable series of seen-it-before jolts...played at exceedingly slow speed."[22] Many critics were unimpressed with the special visual effects which others had found praiseworthy. "Rose Red," said the New York Daily News, "...is a haunted-house story that's told so slowly, it's almost inert. The climactic special effects are even worse, guaranteeing that—should you last to the end—the only screaming you'll be doing is with laughter."[23] Critic and academician Tony Magistrale felt the miniseries over-relied on special effects so much that it felt "oppressive", concluding:
| “ | the miniseries spends an excessive amount of time dramatizing the shocking and horrific displays of the house's reanimation and not nearly enough effort examining why any of these displays are relevant to a larger purpose.... While the film's super-annuated Halloween tricks are often visually and technically stunning, they also tend to weaken the seriousness of Rose Red's storyline and dominate it at the expense of character development.[24] | ” |
Most damning of all, he concluded, was the lack of character development: "...there are few characters in the miniseries that we care about—and certainly no one to inspire the heroic imagination, as does Wendy Torrance in the minseries version of The Shining or Mike Anderson in Storm [of the Century]."[24]
The character of Annie Wheaton is similar to another Stephen King character, Carrie White—the main character from Stephen King's first published novel, Carrie. As a young girl, Carrie telekinetically dropped stones on her house, and Annie does the same thing at both the beginning and end of Rose Red.[4][25]
The character of Deanna Petrie shares the last name of the young protagonist Mark Petrie of King's 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot.
Rose Red (the mansion) is referred to in King's Black House as one of the places where "slippage" occurs.
The character Pam has the special power of 'The Touch' (although the ability is not referred to with this name, it is essentially the same) like the characters Alain Johns and Jake Chambers have in The Dark Tower novels.
Also 'the Red' often stands for evil forces (as opposed to 'the White') in several Novels. The red king for example in The Dark Tower or the red color in Duma Key.
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