“It’s a madhouse, a madhouse!” This isn't connected to the “House” series with its four films from 1985 to 1992 (though there was talk of bringing it back). The basic premise follows familiar horror conventions, tracing back to classics like "Dracula" and "Psycho": individuals arrive at a secluded, mysterious estate and quickly find themselves in a fight for survival. What changes things is the nature of who or what they’re up against—something I won't spoil here. You could consider it a variation on the “cabin-in-the-woods” formula, except the cabin turns out to be a creepy mansion. Considering its budget of just $2.5 million, the production design for the manor and the indoor sets is impressive, including the lighting, all contributing to an effectively unsettling atmosphere. The film also manages to create a genuinely disturbing feeling through the unfolding madness. I was surprised by how emotionally affecting the ending turned out to be. The cast includes Julie Ann Emery as brunette Leslie, who delivers a decent performance, although her character could have been developed further. Heidi Dippold, playing blonde Stephanie, is fairly unremarkable at first but ultimately won me over by the film's conclusion. Reynaldo Rosales and J.P. Davis are serviceable in their roles as the male leads, while Michael Madsen makes an appearance in a significant supporting part. My main issue lies with the script; it throws the characters into chaos too quickly without giving them room to develop first. However, some might say that the flashbacks revealing details about each character compensate for this. A larger problem is that much of the story involves the four protagonists repeatedly running around in a chaotic setting, which becomes tiresome. It reminded me of “Death Tunnel,” but that film made up for it with energetic editing and memorable characters, not to mention some good songs on its soundtrack. I only discovered after watching that this was based on a work by Frank Peretti, and it proved to be his last attempt at filmmaking; he wrote the screenplay adapting his 2006 novel, with assistance from other writers. The film received negative reviews and didn't do well financially, but it did make its way to DVD in April 2009. Filmmaking is difficult, and creating a truly great movie is even harder—most people move on to more comfortable work. Ultimately, this project needed some revisions to realize its potential and address the problems, but that would have required money, which they didn’t have. Still, there's enough good here to make it somewhat worthwhile for those who are interested. The film has a running time of 1 hour and 28 minutes and was filmed in July-August 2006 in Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland. GRADE: C+/B-

Source on TMDB