I was so excited when the previews for this movie came out...I simply had to see it. <br /><br />As a professional, Goth/Macabre/Erotica author, anything chilling, romantically tragic and down right elegantly creepy is right up my alley. From the first glimpses of the mansion and the surely wonderful scenes I would see, I was ready to go. I was *very* doubtful about Eddie Murphy being in this movie (his comedic talent is better used elsewhere where he can actually be funny) but I decided to give it a try...Now...I wish that I hadn't.<br /><br />Was this movie supposed to be a kid's movie? Was it supposed to be a teenager's movie? What WAS this movie supposed to be? Whatever it was supposed to be, romantic, tragic, funny, thrilling...it didn't make it. The plot, the story and the acting got terribly lost *somewhere* in it and was never found. This movie has so much wrong with it that I hardly know where to start, so I will simply stick with the acting.<br /><br />First off, the cast with the exceptions of Nathaniel Parker, Terence Stamp and Jennifer Tilly was a disaster...<br /><br />Where they "dug" this cast up, I have no idea, but they should have re-buried them. Wallace Shawn and Dina Spybey were absolutely great in their parts, but you can't expect two funny and cute people to carry an entire movie...the way this movie was laid out, they were expected to do far too much work and that was simply too much to ask. <br /><br />Nathaniel Parker's obviously beautiful and elegant acting talents were so far wasted in this movie that I felt sorry for him. Take the *entire* cast away, give him the house, a roaring fire in the study, and a wonderful wardrobe of silken smoking jackets, black pants and dress shoes and let *him* do his own movie filled with ghosts and things that go bump in the night and I would gladly buy a ticket to see it.<br /><br />Terence Stamp's broad range of acting talent was also a total waste in this movie and a few times judging by the expressions on his face, he may have thought so too. <br /><br />Jennifer Tilly was the only truly saving grace for this film and then yet again, she couldn't have been expected to carry it any more than she did.<br /><br />Marsha Thomason should have been far bypassed for this film. I think her talents could have been better used elsewhere as well. It was painfully obvious that she, nor could anyone else in this movie with possibly the exception of Terence Stamp, hold anywhere near the court that Nathaniel Parker did when called to be entrancing and tragic...she just was not believable.<br /><br />The only reason I own this movie is to look at the beautiful settings (the house is magnificent on the grandest scale, and the cemetery is wonderful!) and to sigh forlornly alongside the elegant and ever so dashing Nathaniel Parker who was truly one devastatingly tragic and beautiful ghost...<br /><br />Avoid this movie...