Dream House (2011 film)

Dream House
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jim Sheridan
Written by	David Loucka
Produced by	Jim Sheridan James G. Robinson David C. Robinson Daniel Bobker Ehren Kruger
Starring	Daniel Craig Rachel Weisz Naomi Watts Marton Csokas
Cinematography	Caleb Deschanel
Edited by	Barbara Tulliver
Music by	John Debney
Production company	Morgan Creek Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	September 30, 2011 (2011-09-30)
Running time	92 minutes
Countries	Template:Film US Canada
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$38,502,340

Dream House is a 2011 American psychological thriller directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, and Marton Csokas. It was released on September 30, 2011 in the United States and Canada by Universal Pictures and Morgan Creek Productions to mostly bad reviews and poor box office numbers.

Plot

Will (Daniel Craig), his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz), and two daughters, Trish and Dee Dee, have recently moved to a new house.

At first, the family lives there happily but soon Will's children start seeing a man watching the house from the front yard, and Will and Libby find evidence that something has happened to the house's previous owners. Will eventually discovers that, years prior, a woman named Elizabeth and her daughters Beatrice and Katherine were murdered, and her husband, Peter Ward, was the main suspect because they believed he was the only one at the house during the shooting, but was let off because of lack of evidence. Will comes to believe that Peter Ward has returned and is stalking his family, and starts searching for more information about him.

Will's research leads him to the psychiatric hospital where Peter Ward was committed after being arrested for murdering his family. There, Will discovers that he is Peter Ward, and created a new identity for himself in order to cope with the grief of his family's death. When he was still in the mental hospital being treated, he decided that he could not have been Peter Ward because he would never kill his family so, he made up a new name in which he used the numbers on his wrist band ID (W1-1L 8-10-10). In turn, the audience learns that everything that has occurred up to this point in the movie was just fantasy. Peter is informed by the doctors that he claimed he was innocent. He returns to his house, which is actually abandoned and decrepit, and converses with the projections of his wife and daughters, who claim that they believe in his innocence.

Peter eventually becomes closer to Ann and her daughter Chloe, and discovers that they were friends of his family. Ann believes in his innocence and encourages Peter to live a new life in order to heal himself. Peter eventually decides to return to his old house to confront his memories and, with Ann's help, realizes that he did not kill his family. It was a local man named Boyce (Elias Koteas), who broke into the house and shot Peter's wife and daughters. During the fight, Elizabeth tried to shoot Boyce and accidentally shot Peter, allowing Boyce to recover the handgun and kill her. Peter was then accused of the murder.

Peter and Ann are suddenly attacked by Boyce and Ann's ex, Jack, who reveals that he had hired Boyce to kill Ann so he could get revenge on her for divorcing him. Apparently, Boyce entered the wrong house and accidentally killed Peter's family. Jack decides to kill Ann and set the house on fire, framing Peter for her murder, and shoots Boyce as punishment for his early failure. As Jack tries to ignite a fire, Peter escapes, overpowers Jack and saves Ann. Boyce douses Jack in gasoline in revenge for being shot, but Jack shoots him in the head before being consumed by the flames.

While Ann and Chloe re-unite, Peter reenters the burning house and confronts the ghosts of his family; they forgive him and tell him to leave to save himself. Peter barely escapes the fire, having finally discovered the truth about the past and accepted his family's deaths. On his way out, he recovers the scrapbook/journal/notebook he had hidden under a stair tread.

A year later, Peter has returned to New York City and published a book called Dream House about his recent experiences. It was a best selling book and he continued on with his life.

Cast

• Daniel Craig as Will Atenton / Peter Ward
• Rachel Weisz as Libby Atenton / Elizabeth Ward
• Naomi Watts as Ann Patterson
• Marton Csokas as Jack Patterson
• Claire Geare as Dee Dee Atenton / Katherine Ward
• Taylor Geare as Trish Atenton / Beatrice Ward
• Rachel G. Fox as Chloe Patterson
• Mark Wilson as Dennis Conklin
• Jonathan Potts as Tony Ferguson
• Lynne Griffin as Sadie
• Elias Koteas as Hooded Man / Boyce
• Gregory Smith as Artie
• Chris Owens as Tom Barrion
• Jane Alexander as Dr. Greeley
• Sarah Gadon as Cindi
• Marlee Otto as Zara
• Joe Pingue as Martin
• David Huband as Officer Nelson
• James Collins as Police Officer

Production

Director Jim Sheridan clashed with Morgan Creek’s James G. Robinson constantly on the set over the shape of the script and production of the film. Sheridan then tried to take his name off the film after being unhappy with the film and his relationship with Morgan Creek Productions.

Sheridan, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz disliked the final cut of the film so much that they refused to do press promotion or interviews for it. The trailer, cut by Morgan Creek Productions, came under fire for revealing the main plot twist of the film.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	link
Filmtracks	link

The critically acclaimed score to Dream House was composed by John Debney and conducted by Robert Ziegler. Christian Clemmensen, reviewer of Filmtracks.com, gave it four out of five stars, declaring it "among the biggest surprises of 2011" and stating, "It's not clear how badly Debney's work for Dream House was butchered by the studio's frantic last minute attempts to make the film presentable, but Debney's contribution does feature a cohesive flow of development that is, at least on album, a worthy souvenir from this otherwise messy situation." The soundtrack was released 11 October 2011 and features fifteen tracks of score at a running time of fifty-six minutes.

1. "Dream House" (5:36)
2. "Little Girls Die" (2:53)
3. "Footprints in the Snow" (3:17)
4. "Peter Searches" (6:00)
5. "Night Fever" (1:33)
6. "Intruders" (1:41)
7. "Libby Sees Graffiti" (2:33)
8. "Peter Ward's Room" (2:10)
9. "Ghostly Playthings" (3:17)
10. "Peter Ward's Story" (3:13)
11. "Ghost House" (2:37)
12. "Remember Libby" (4:05)
13. "Murder Flashback" (3:59)
14. "Peter Saves Ann/Redemption" (7:29)
15. "Dream House End Credits" (5:55)

Reception

The film was not screened in advance for critics, but was critically panned. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 6% of 77 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 3.7 out of 10. The consensus states: "Dream House is punishingly slow, stuffy and way too obvious to be scary." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 42 based on 8 reviews.

External links

• Official website
• Dream House at Box Office Mojo
• Dream House at IMDb