...cause they're both pretty lousy. I think the best part of the movie is the horrendously imperial picture of Faye Dunaway at the top of the stairs. She looks like she could very easily step out of that picture, rip someone to bloody pieces, and calmly re-enter the portrait looking as if nothing had happened. Now, you know a movie's in trouble when part of the set furnishings manages to attract your attention.

I admit, I paid $30 for the DVD just so I could see Faye Dunaway in a contemporary horror movie. I know what you're thinking--30 bucks right down into a gaping black hole. And you would be absolutely correct. This movie sucks. There, it's right out in the open. I was expecting some actual scares, and I waited and waited and waited. None came. The raven (probably a crow in makeup) didn't scare me, seeing small pieces of internal organs didn't scare me, and even Faye didn't scare me. I'm not that brave, I know, so it must be the movie itself that is the trouble. What's more, Jennifer wasn't scared either. Her internal organs were literally falling apart and she seemed more peeved than anything. Her life was rapidly coming to a close and she's worried about attaining more money. Honey, you can't take money where you're going!!! "I need money," she continually says, completely ignoring the fact that her lungs have collapsed and ceased to function.

Meanwhile, I spent the whole blasted movie wondering what was up with the grandmother (Faye). I was suspicious at first, Faye playing a grandmother and all, and I was still suspicious at the end. There is another relative living in the house that Jennifer and Mary Ellen the Grandmother-From-Hell are forced to share temporarily, and I'm guessing she is of the same generation as said grandmother. Here's the weird part--the relative looks like she's just endured her eight hundredth birthday party. Mary Ellen looks like she's just gotten a face-lift from a renowned surgeon. Face-lifts can't work miracles, but I think Faye's appearance is important to the rice-paper plot. SPOILER!!! It seems that the family is plagued by an illness that affects bad acting...sorry, my little joke. Seriously though, there's all illness that causes their organs to fail and ultimately disintegrate. Yuck, huh? Interestingly enough, Mary Ellen is still alive and all her organs are intact. How did she avoid the Family Curse? Something's up with her, obviously.

Another reason for mourning the loss of my thirty dollars--this movie features one of my all-time movie pet peeves. I refer to the double ending. This movie ends twice. I absolutely hate it when that happens, and in this movie it feels like the director shot the ending, didn't like it, and forget to remove it during editing. I guess it's supposed to be scary, but it is only if you're a film editor.

There is one perk to this debacle, though, and it's one of the reasons I bought the DVD. The "filmmaker" commentary features Faye Dunaway, and I wanted to see how she acted when she didn't have lines to recite. Guess what--the movie sucked so bad I wasn't able to sit through it again. Drat.