Christina’s House (2001)
MGM Home Entertainment
Cast: Allison Lange, John Savage, Brad Rowe
Extras:
Rating:

Poor, young Christina (Allison Lange) has so many problems. She lives in a creepy old house with her brother Bobby (Lorne Stewart) and her dad (John Savage). She’s forced to look after Bobby all day, so she never gets to see her overbearing boyfriend Eddy (Brendan Fehr); although handyman Howie (Brad Rowe) is always around to make her feel safe. To make matters worse, Christina begins to hear strange noises from the attic and she becomes convinced that there is a stranger in the house with her family. When a series of murders take place near Christina’s house (which is apparently in the median strip of a highway), the authorities suspect her family, but Christina knows that there is somehow else lurking nearby.

Throughout this stinker of a movie, I kept hoping that the person in the attic was a competent screenwriter, or perhaps a barber, there to give Bobby a decent haircut. ’Christina’s House’ tries very hard to be suspenseful, but what we get is an overly melodramatic borefest, in which a new ’red herring’ is introduced every five minutes. Lange and Savage argue a lot, but their characters often appear to be in different films. This is the kind of the film where the ’whodunnit’ aspect is revealed well before the conclusion, but the viewer is forced to wait until the end to figure out what in the world is going on. Unfortunately for ’Christina’s House’, the ending of the film is quite intriguing, but this only makes the rest of the movie look even worse. And for those of you who see the movie, let me ask you this; Wouldn’t you have noticed a certain implement of torture in your house?

’Christina’s House’ is put up for sale on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment. The film is presented in an anamorphic widescreen and is letterboxed at 1.85:1. The image is very grainy, with black specs noticeable in most every scene. Also, there is an occasional defect from the source print. Other than these defects, there are no overt problems from artifacting or edge enhancement. The Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack offers clear dialogue and some surround sound action, but there was a noticeable lack of bass response. There are no extras on the DVD.