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Telly addicts

The Haunting of Radcliffe House-Anyone else watching?

61 replies

ThePortlyPinUp · 27/12/2014 22:30

DH says it's too predictable with the husband changing personality but I'm finding it quite jumpy. I've resorted to watching from behind the safety of a rather plump staffy and a cushion. The ad breaks are really winding me up though.

OP posts:
MercuryRising · 27/12/2014 23:38

Just caught up with the ending - a bit silly!

gotothegymtomorrow · 27/12/2014 23:39

Um the parents must still be possessed. She is is a isabella and he is either walker or Radcliffe. .. but is there a part 2? It was a bit obvious but still scared the he'll out of me!

Nictor · 27/12/2014 23:39

Walker was another artist who must have lived there after... He must have been possessed just like this husband was. Except his wife must have pushed him on the roof top and he got killed in the fountain... That's my theory anyway

gotothegymtomorrow · 27/12/2014 23:40

Yes.. who was walker?

Juliec554 · 27/12/2014 23:41

It certainly had me on the edge of my seat in places, I also liked the ending. I love a good twist ??

gotothegymtomorrow · 27/12/2014 23:41

Good theory.

Nictor · 27/12/2014 23:42

An artist who lived at the house in the intervening period. So first was Radcliffe who killed his wife the. Walker must have lived there and became possessed by Radcliffe and his wife ended up throwing him off the roof

Nictor · 27/12/2014 23:44

My other thought was that the girl ghost was walkers daughter who was killed by the ghost in the room with the bed and poison, torture etc that the little girl escaped from this time around

LuluJakey1 · 27/12/2014 23:45

We are watching it on 5 +1. I am half- watching mainly because I am a bit scared and also because I am Mnetting as well. DH is bored by it, thinks it is full of cliches. I am also a bit offended by it in places. What is she doing - her husband rubs blood all over her back and takes photos of her sobbing in the shower and she seems to say nothing about it. Then he rapes her and she says nothing about that and seems to have forgotten it immediately.

Only the dog has any sense.

ThePortlyPinUp · 27/12/2014 23:45

I thought Walker was Radcliffe? I thought the painting was by Radcliffe which was Walkers pseudonym?

OP posts:
WeAreEternal · 28/12/2014 01:16

Walker and Radcliffe are the same person, his name was Walker but he went by Radcliffe professionally as an artist.
Isabelle was his wife, his pet name for her was petal.

The plot as I understood it was Radcliffe practiced alchemy and the occult, they made some kind of sacrificial pact and after killing her in some kind of ritual he then killed himself. That was in 1845.

In modern day the family arrive hired by an unknown 'American banker' who hired the mother to restore the house after a 150 yr old will surfaced and he inherited the place, the only stipulation being that he needed to restore the house to it's original state to get the deeds.

Some ghostly occurrences seem to the mother to find a hidden room that was not on the plans to the house. While breaking into the room the husband cuts his finger and that begins his progressive possession by Radcliffe.
He makes a potion that will allow Isabelle to posess the mother and puts it in her water bottle, she only takes a sip but apparently that is enough.
As the clock approached midnight the husband, who is now fully possessed begins to repeats the ritual that radcliffe and his wife performed in 1845, which will transfer Isabelle's spirit into the mothers body.

It seams as though the children stopped the ritual just in time and as it was not completed by midnight the spell is broken and everything goes back to normal, the husband is no longer possessed and they pack their bags and leave.
However, in the taxi it is revealed that the mother and father and both now possessed by Radcliffe and Isabelle.

I liked the plot, it had potential, the film needed much better writers though, there were too many unnecessary cliches which made some parts not make sense.
Like when the children were stuck in the root cellar who was running around on all fours?

pigsinmud · 28/12/2014 09:31

I watched with dh and ds2 (14). Not remotely scary. Dh thought it was just a load of cliches. Having just had an extension, we laughed at the idea the house would be renovated in 6 months by one person!

I liked the twist at then end, but ds2 couldn't deal with it. He said it hadn't finished properly.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 28/12/2014 09:31

There was the dark haired woman in the white dress (nightie) but who was the woman in the garden dressed in black (no not The Woman in Black that's another film Grin ) that the daughter saw round the corner?

Showy · 28/12/2014 10:07

I think I must have totally missed any explanation as to whether Radcliffe and Walker were the same person. I am also unsure as to what the ritual was that they were taking part in. The original ritual I mean. Clearly, in the present day they were in the process of moving a soul from person to another but exactly what they were up to in 1845 passed me by.

I don't mind the blanks in horror stories, they're almost expected. Your imagination should fill in the gaps; it's one of the beauties of gothic horror. You aren't expected to be a passive observer. However, the blanks were glaring. From the woman not reacting appropriately to her batshit crazy husband's blood obsession and sudden morphing into a voyeur and rapist to the lack of explanation over who did what in 1845, more precisely why they did it. Chuck in who exactly is scuttling around on all fours in the cellar and why the cellar in particular is important and whether there were two ghost women and two ghost men or just one of each and some costume changes and I'm confused. Just a nod towards any of it would have helped.

Admittedly, I might have missed some important clues as I was quite bored with it all. Except the car. That was pretty funny. The car is usually quite a safe haven in horror programmes until the crazy person gets into it. The car being possessed was quite amusing.

WeAreEternal · 28/12/2014 13:29

Looking at the house there didn't really seem to be a whole lot that needed restoring, and she was originally supposed to have help but her assistant/colleague couldn't come because his wife was in a car accident.
I would assume most of the work she was planning to do was cosmetic as the house seemed it good condition otherwise, so it could have taken 6 months with some help.

One of the main problems with the film was that they seemed to expect you to work out too much, as Showy has pointed out one of the things with horror movies is that there is always a degree of things left for viewers to work out for themselves.
Because the writers decided to put as many horror cliches in as possible it created too many gaps in the story.

I belive the writers expect viewers to assume that all of the unnecessary clichés were actually the ghosts of Isabelle and Radcliffe pushing the family into doing what they wanted/needed so that they could perform their ritual in the end.

The photo of the ghost of Isabelle led the mother the discover the existence if the root cellar then later the boy magically ending up in the cellar and the girl being steered to fall down into the cellar by the ghost of Isabelle chasing her outside, with Isabelle now in a black coat, because apparently ghosts get cold too. This led the mother to smash down the bricked up doorway to save them. The purpose of all of this was to open up the cellar so that Radcliffe possessing the father could retrieve the huge pendulum thing that was buried down there.

I did a little googling about the film and it seems it was called Altar until recently.

KurriKurri · 28/12/2014 13:32

I enjoyed it - DD and I had blankets we could hide under at scary bits - although in fact I didn't need mine - didn;t like the squeezing blood fromt he finger bits though - very grim!

What has the actress who was the mother been in?- I liked her, she's very beautiful.

Dipankrispaneven · 28/12/2014 14:52

We gave up in the ad break after the rape as it was such crap. For me it was the incredibly cliched sound track which was the most laughable aspect.

Showy · 28/12/2014 14:54

She did say that it was mostly cosmetic work didn't she?

Kurri, she is beautiful isn't she? Olivia Williams. She's been in lots of things. DH said a few minutes in 'is that the woman from Sixth Sense?'. He is right and she's barely changed. Beautiful bone structure.

Showy · 28/12/2014 14:57

Oh and the female ghost/s? Was she malevolent or not? I couldn't work that out either. What did she want? To possess the woman? To help? Why was she following the children?

Davros · 28/12/2014 18:42

Funnily enough Olivia Williams was the female lead in "The Ghost" which is an excellent film. I'm not sure she was in the Sixth Sense, the mother in that was Toni Collette. I thought the programme was pretty crap, Matthew Modine looked bizarre right from the start and I couldn't tell if the younger child was a girl or boy until I read the credits and the actor was a boy. Even though I ffwd through the ads I think they really spoilt it. The various ghosts were confusing and the way the rooms changed

Clawdy · 28/12/2014 21:06

Found it contrived, confusing and oddly without atmosphere - it's always so much more effective if you don't actually see much in the way of ghostly faces etc. The creepiest bit for me was the glimpse of the scuttling figure on all fours - but wasn't that possibly the little brother trying not to be seen?

Showy · 28/12/2014 21:30

She is in The Sixth Sense. She's Bruce Willis's wife.

Blondeshavemorefun · 28/12/2014 21:58

on planner, meant to watch last night but got side tracked ......... Wink

will try and watch tomorrow

havnt read any replies but is it scary? need a real scary film to freak me out!!!!!

tho many thought remember me was scary and i didnt

brave blondes Xmas Grin

PoignantPrincess · 28/12/2014 22:38

Yeah, the parents were both possessed because the mum was doing that finger-clicking thing. But it just doesn't really make ANY sense!! I mean, don't get me wrong, it freaked the crap out of me (I'm a total wuss when it comes to horror).

Right, here's what I don't get: the dad was possessed and was trying to recreate the satanic ritual in which his missus died, for God-only-knows what reason (because seriously, what was the point?? She was about to get speared through the head...rinse and repeat of the first attempt so what was the point?!?), and it seemed as though the big metal pointy thing hitting the ground was what pulled the dad out of the possession. I mean, it worked for the rest of the house, didn't it?! So if he was pulled out of the possession then how did the woman get possessed?!

All very confusing. And yet I'm still sure I won't sleep tonight!

Davros · 28/12/2014 22:53

Ah yes, I remember her being in the Sixth Sense now Xmas Blush