I went to see this film with great expectations as I'm a great fan of Sheridan's body of work and also happen to enjoy Psychological Suspense/Horror films (NOT slasher film trash). So I was really quite disappointed with this effort by a team that seemed to have so much potential.
But now it all makes sense to learn that the final effort was yanked away from Sheridan; which has resulted in a homogenized and generic thriller made up of (and the result of) idiotic random behind-the-scenes "creative decision making" by Test Audiences(?) and less-than-passionate-about-the-story/genre Studio Heads whose primary involvement was solely in getting a "Horror/Thriller" into theaters by October in order to cash in on the Halloween audience.
Seeing this happen again and again, I doubt they will ever learn. This is the only industry in the world where one (as a Producer) can "fail upward" just because you got something (anything) produced (in the can).
As a final note: There was a fantastic Spec Script floating around a couple of years ago with nearly the same title... "The Dream House." It was somewhat similar, as it involved an Architect & his family who rehab & remodel an abandoned mansion by a lake; but THAT script was a truly terrifying Horror/Ghost Story along the same lines as Shirley Jackson & Robert Wise's quintessential B&W Horror Classic "The Haunting."
With this Dream House turning out to be such a dud and a nightmare, hopefully that spec script will resurface in the near future to make up for this failed effort.
But now it all makes sense to learn that the final effort was yanked away from Sheridan; which has resulted in a homogenized and generic thriller made up of (and the result of) idiotic random behind-the-scenes "creative decision making" by Test Audiences(?) and less-than-passionate-about-the-story/genre Studio Heads whose primary involvement was solely in getting a "Horror/Thriller" into theaters by October in order to cash in on the Halloween audience.
Seeing this happen again and again, I doubt they will ever learn. This is the only industry in the world where one (as a Producer) can "fail upward" just because you got something (anything) produced (in the can).
As a final note: There was a fantastic Spec Script floating around a couple of years ago with nearly the same title... "The Dream House." It was somewhat similar, as it involved an Architect & his family who rehab & remodel an abandoned mansion by a lake; but THAT script was a truly terrifying Horror/Ghost Story along the same lines as Shirley Jackson & Robert Wise's quintessential B&W Horror Classic "The Haunting."
With this Dream House turning out to be such a dud and a nightmare, hopefully that spec script will resurface in the near future to make up for this failed effort.