**_“It’s a madhouse, a madhouse!”_**

This isn’t linked to the “House” franchise that featured four movies between 1985-1992 (with a relaunch flick announced). The setup is standard for horror, going back to “Dracula” and “Psycho”: A person or people arrive at a mysterious remote manor and soon find themselves in a life-or-death situation. The main variable is the nature of the antagonist (which I won’t reveal in this case). I suppose it could be filed under cabin-in-the-woods with the understanding that the ‘cabin’ is an eerie mansion.

Although it only cost $2.5 million, the manor and the indoor sets, including the lighting, are outstanding, all of which create an effectively creepy milieu. On top of this, a disturbing vibe is successfully evoked with the insanity that starts happening. A plus is how the ending is genuinely moving, which I wasn’t expecting.

As far as the cast goes, Julie Ann Emery is good as brunette Leslie, but not enough is done with her, whereas Heidi Dippold as blonde Stephanie is generally meh, yet she sort of won me over by the climax. Reynaldo Rosales and J.P. Davis are effective in a nondescript way as the masculine protagonists while intimidating Michael Madsen appears in a key peripheral role.

The problem for me is the script failed to allow these characters to breathe before thrusting them into the mayhem at the BnB. Yet it could be argued that the revelations about each character via flashbacks make up for it.

A bigger issue is how the bulk of the story consists of the four protagonists essentially running in circles in an environment of lunacy, which gets tedious. I couldn’t help thinking of “Death Tunnel,” but that movie compensated for it with dynamic editing and stunning characters, not to mention a notable song or two on the soundtrack.

I didn’t know until the end credits that this was a Frank Peretti piece. It happened to be his final stab at filmmaking, writing the screenplay based on his 2006 novel (with the help of a couple of other screenwriters). It got lousy reviews and bombed at the box office but was released to DVD in April 2009. Hey, filmmaking is hard work and making a great movie is even more challenging. Most flee to easier pastures to make a living.

At the end of the day, this needed a rewrite to flush out potential and fix issues, but that would cost money, which the production didn’t have. Nevertheless, there’s arguably enough good here to make it semi-worthwhile for those interested.

It runs 1h 28m and was shot in Jul-Aug 2006 in (of all places) the heart of Poland, specifically Lódz, Lódzkie.

GRADE: C+/B-