BA_Harrison The cast and crew of a reality ghost-hunting TV show rock up at a haunted plantation house expecting the usual non-event; to their horror, this particular location turns out to be the real deal, a possessed building that feeds on the blood of its victims.Y'know, for a SyFy movie starring Corin Nemec and a past her prime Charisma Carpenter, I didn't think that House of Bones was all that bad. Sure, the final act is a bit of a chaotic mess, with inexplicable stuff happening left, right and centre, but I was never bored, director Jeffery Scott Lando successfully creating a spooky atmosphere throughout despite the silliness and throwing in a reasonable amount of fun gore amidst all of the supernatural shenanigans.For fans of the red stuff there is a dumb cop impaled by a malevolent iron railing, a woman getting a Glasgow smile courtesy of a large shard of glass, mutilated slaves on meat-hooks and one of the ghost-hunters having his eye drilled out by a robotic camera (don't ask!).5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Paul Andrews House of Bones starts as a television network executive tells reality television show 'Sinster Sites' host Quentin French (Corin Nemec) that the show is close to being cancelled & that he needs to do some location filming. Meanwhile Sinister Sites producer Tom Rule (Ricky Wayne) has found a supposedly haunted house & is checking it out with lead investigator Gred Fished (Marcus Lyle Brown), cameraman Simon (Colin Gaylean), production assistant Bub (Kyle Russell Clements) & psychic Heather Burton (Charisma Carpenter) who is there to add some authenticity to the show. The crew set their equipment up but Heather sense something evil, a supernatural presence that lures Bub to his death & gains energy from his demise. Soon the house has trapped the remaining crew inside itself & begins to terrorise & kill them as it needs fresh human soul's to exist. As the mystery of the house is revealed the survivors fight for their lives in a desperate bid to escape...Directed by Jeffrey Scott Lando this SyFy Channel original is a slight departure for them as House of Bones does not feature any giant Fish, Reptile, Dinosaur or Animal of any description & instead turns it's collective attention to the haunted house genre. House of Bones is a mixture of films such as Burnt Offerings (1976), The Shining (1980), Poltergeist (1982), The Ring (2002) & The Skeleton Key (2005) & shamelessly rips them off both in style & content. To be fair House of Bones isn't the worst film I have ever seen but it's pretty moronic & poor, I also had the misfortune to be suckered in by cool Blu-ray artwork & brought it blind so I actually paid good money for this, yes, I am mad & I feel very foolish. The basic story about a reality television show crew being trapped in a haunted house is decent enough & I really liked the idea that the house fed off the character's death's & behind all the walls are slimy entrails, bones & bits of human flesh but that's about as good as House of Bones gets. At 85 minutes long House of Bones has a reasonable pace & one or two decent moments but overall it's lacklustre, tame & underdeveloped. The human remains behind the walls are never really expanded upon, the well at the end comes out of nowhere & feels like it's there because there was a haunted well in The Ring while the ending makes no sense as surely if a television crew just disappeared questions would be asked & official investigations commenced. While House of Bones takes itself seriously for the vast majority of it's duration there's some grating comic relief with Corin Nemec as the main host who overacts but does provide some relief from the dullness, I am also surprised that none of the crew still trapped inside the house ask Quentin to go for help while he is outside trying to get in. Not that House of Bones makes any logical sense anyway, decision making by the character's leaves a lot to be desired to be honest. The script tries to vary things but ideas that are introduced are quickly dropped never to be brought up again, the glowing worm things for instance seem to serve no great purpose.House of Bones looks alright, it's competently made enough with the minimal use of CGI computer effects work which the SyFy Channel are notorious for, there's not much blood or gore & a pretty low body count although I must commend the makers for the rather downbeat if implausible ending. There's a brief shot of some severed toes, a bit of blood splatter, a very tame scene in which someone gets a shard of glass stuck in their mouth, someone gets a drill in his eyeball & the best kill when a cop tries to climb over the fence & is impaled on the fencing spikes. Charisma Carpenter keeps her clothes on throughout & quite frumpy they are too. Forget about the really cool looking monster on the DVD/Blu-ray artwork as showcased by the IMDb on the House of Bones main page, it's in the film for about ten seconds & there's never a full body shot of it either, just a few brief quick flashes before it disappears back down the well. Don't be fooled like I was, hell I was ripped-off but you don't have to be. The entire film is brightly lit & mainly set in the day in a fairly small hose which does not to build tension, suspense or atmosphere.Filmed in Crowley & Lafayette in Louisiana this has pretty good production values actually, it looks reasonably good to be fair to it. The acting is so-so, it's not laugh out loud terrible but not exactly great either.House of Bones is the first film I have brought blind in years in the sense that I didn't check any online reviews or anything & was suckered in by a nice box, I feel cheated & even buying a cheap second hand copy I feel ripped-off & disappointed. Not as terrible as some SyFy Channel films but I'd rather have watched it for free than spend good money on it.

Scarecrow-88 Charisma Carpenter stars as a psychic who "reads" supposedly "haunted places" hired by a reality TV show. Corin Nemic is a self-absorbed celebrity television host whose cheesy show, Sinister Sites, is sinking in the ratings, needing a boost so he reluctantly agrees to attend(or so he thinks)the newest selected house(The Wicker House, where a child went missing), which, unlike other fraud turkeys, is legitimately haunted. Charisma senses a lot of pain which will visit upon the Sinister Sites crew over a night shoot. It doesn't take long before paranormal activity rears it's ugly head. Technical equipment(cameras, sound microphones,recorders, even a little remote controlled robot)are put to good use in the hopes of capturing something substantially significant. Sci-fi channel haunted house flick wears out the usual, and very tired, clichés. There's a well located in the slaves quarters(..which is now an abandoned shack)which is kind of a belly of the Wicker house(..we actually hear crunching sounds after a dead body is thrown into it, signaling it's feeding!)and come to find that it must be fed. Those caught in the house include Carpenter(..as Heather), producer Tom Rule(Rick Robinson, Jr, who gets all excited at the possibilities that this show will yield actual results seeing career advancement), crew members Greg(Marcus Lyle Brown) and Simon(Collin Galyean)& invited guest Bub(Kyle Russell Clements). We soon discover that the house is needing a "caretaker" to provide it with human nourishment. Nemec doesn't really factor into the plot, as host/executive producer Quentin, until the very end, and really doesn't have much to do other than bemuse as a smug Hollywood "star". Carpenter remains frightened and cautious(..when she isn't ill either from spitting blood or gagging hair?!?!). The character of Tom changes behavior almost spontaneously, which never makes a hell of a lot of sense, going from scared rabbit wanting to get out of the house, to voluntary killer willing to do it's evil bidding. Stephanie Honore is Sarah, the house's Realtor, and unfortunate victim when she shows up, believing she was called by Simon, when in fact it was the building's evil to summoned her! Ridiculous plot, story developments, and finale sink this pitiful movie which is devoid of thrills or chills. An eye is gouged by a small drill, an ax is hurled into a victim's back, a sharred piece of window glass stabs into another victim's mouth, etc. I figured this was more or less a spoof on "ghost reality shows", such as sci-fi channel's very own "Ghost Hunters", failing miserably.

TheNoItAll I just finished watching "House of Bones" and I must say that I was impressed. When I tuned in I thought that I was just watching another boring, pointless Sci-Fi movie or "SyFy" as they now call it. The acting was way better than I was expecting Charisma was great as always, but the others were surprisingly good also. Some of the Special effects were a little cheesy but for a "SyFy" they were great. I was on the edge of my seat from the very start when the boy went to get his baseball and all the way to the very end. The story & plot of a haunted house that wasn't just haunted but very much alive was familiar, probably used before, but still very interesting & in it's own way unique. To sum it up this movie was AMAZING for what it was. Even if it was in the theaters it was still worth watching! I recommend it to anyone who loves horror flicks.