The Skeptic

2009
5.6| 1h29m| en| More Info
Released: 01 May 2009 Released
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Synopsis

After the mysterious death of his Aunt, a confirmed skeptic lawyer, Bryan Becket, dismisses reports that her house is haunted and moves in. Immediately occurrences begin he cannot explain. And beyond the occurrences there is something about the house which gnaws at Becket - some strange connection he senses he has with the house's past. Soon, the haunting turns personal.

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Reviews

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!
Console best movie i've ever seen.
KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
katzcrazy1984 From the get go it seemed like B feature. It had a number of known actors and held great promise as it continued. Sadly the build up led to no much and the ending fell short. It was enjoyable until the fall. Its almost like they got scared of where it was going and changed direction in the last 60 seconds.
GL84 When a relative passes, a man inherits her decrepit old mansion and coming to learn she believed it haunted sets out to prove it was simply a matter of unrecognizing everyday events around her unaware of a deadly secret lurking within its walls.This here turned out to be an incredibly dull and barely worthwhile entry. The main problem here, which just about ruins the film right off the bat, is the fact that the film's about a person's nature of being skeptical, a trait which means that every time something supposedly supernatural could happen it's always shot down as realistic instead of supernatural, a rather distressing fact made more damaging due to being presented as absolute fact with constant berating and mocking directed at those who think otherwise. This behavior, from the lead no less, makes it an almost unbearable act to get into the film from the beginning as being around such an irritating figure is hard to stand. That this is given to other characters, who each spend most of the time engaging in the same exact behavior throughout the entire film of making it attempt to be realistic rather than trying to emphasize the supernatural hauntings really makes the film's attempts at generating scares pretty worthless. The banging off-screen doors, whispering voices and moving objects to different locations that are being used for that purpose then don't mean anything when they occur since it's all pretty much ignored and explained, reducing their effectiveness long before how tame they are ruins the film in that manner, leaving this whole thing incredibly flawed with a damaging gimmick, lame scares and a boring pace which really kills off the few positive points it developed.Rated PG-13: Violence and Language.
Neil Doyle TIM DALY stars as a skeptical lawyer with no belief in the supernatural who moves into the house of a deceased aunt when his marriage breaks up. He soon believes that he's not alone in the creepy mansion and begins to doubt his sanity after some encounters of a ghostly kind that might just be happening in his head.Before he knows it, he's getting assistance from a woman psychic (ZOE SALDANA) who tells him the house holds a grim secret. Gradually, we discover that the key to the haunting lies in his past, when he was subjected to harsh treatment at the age of five from a mother whose punishment makes "Mommie Dearest" look like "Snow White." So far, so good. There are some nice shivery moments but we keep hoping for our hero to see the light and discover just what is going on. It takes a little too long to reach that conclusion and when it does, the ending is an unsatisfying letdown that leaves you jolted just as the end credits begin to unfold. That's it? Yes, an ambiguous and terribly disappointing and empty stone wall conclusion that provides more questions than answers.Most viewers will feel cheated by the ending, after a fairly good case of goose pimples from a low key, rather tepid ghost story. In the central role of the lawyer, Tim Daly proves almost as adept at drama as he was in comedy roles. TOM ARNOLD, as a sympathetic colleague, has little to do but bark his lines in snappy fashion.
Cujo108 A lawyer's aunt dies and he inherits her house, which she believed to be haunted. He decides to stay there while separated from his wife, and why shouldn't he? After all, he's a die-hard skeptic.This is a very low-key haunted house tale. I'd say it works more as a mystery than outright horror, though it's all fairly straightforward. While the old house is an atmospheric setting, the film is devoid of any chilling moments. Well, I take that back. There is one good scare, but it turns out to be a false one, no threat. The atmosphere of the house is there, it's just that the filmmakers fail to utilize it to any sizable extent. I also felt that the ending was too abrupt. I don't mind abrupt endings, but this one really pushed it.Tim Daly is okay as the "unemotional" lead. Not really a likable sort, I'd say. Tom Arnold is here too, but his part is basically a nothing role. It's Zoe Saldana who steals the show as a high-strung, yet appealing psychic. She could go on to greater things, and no, I absolutely do not consider Avatar a greater thing.The Skeptic isn't bad, but it's nothing too memorable. I do admire it for attempting a quiet, more intimate ghost story in this day of obnoxious, in your face haunting flicks.