Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
When I was a kid I was afraid of the dark. Terrified. Had a night light and everything. Of course my parents would tell me that there’s nothing in the dark and there was nothing to be afraid of and around the time I turned ten, deciding that this fear is getting kind of silly, I decided to put this theory of theirs to the test. So one night I went down in the basement with all of its weird sounds and funny smells and complete lack of light and just sat there, petrified, for the entire night. Nothing happened. I have pretty much been a non-believer in anything that’s allegedly supernatural ever since. Now I do enjoy watching movies on the subject just like I enjoy watching movies about 200 foot lizard monsters stomping on Tokyo because in the final analysis, at least to me, both have the same level of credibility. This leads us to director Tennyson Bardwell’s haunted house film ‘The Skeptic’ about a guy, not unlike myself, who is about to find those long held beliefs of his severely challenged.
In ‘The Skeptic’ Timothy Daly plays the character of attorney Bryan Becket who, as the title would suggest, is indeed a skeptic. If it’s not in front him in some tangible way Bryan doesn’t believe it to be so. Bryan’s skepticism in these matters is no excuse for him being overall dick as we can plainly see evidence of as Bryan gets a call that his old aunt has passed away with his only concern about this otherwise sad event would be Bryan wondering how quickly he can get into her old Victorian house, sell off its assets and get paid. Bryan’s overall lack of emotion also has him at odds with his wife Robin (Andrea Roth) who has taken about as much of his sarcasm and snide remarks as she can stand. Bryan, knowing what a wonderful husband he is to his wife and father to their young son, decides the best course of action is to allow his wife to experience life without him for a little while by moving into his aunt’s large vacant house and this is when his fun begins.
First Bryan starts hearing voices, which leads him to some wacky institute run by one Dr. Koven (Bruce Altman) that his aunt has some association, which examines such phenomena with the Doc assuring Bryan that his mind is just playing tricks on him.
But that tricky mind doesn’t stop things from getting weirder in the house with bodies showing up out of nowhere, odd footsteps and more whispering. Word of this weirdness gets to a kooky completely out of her mind but crazy hot psychic that Bryan met at the kooky institute named Cassie (Zoe Saldana), who thinks she can help Bryan with whatever is going on at the house. These events at the house also unearth a heap of buried emotional baggage that Bryan has been suppressing since he was a little boy, largely centered around the death of his mother. So the question that begs an answer as things get progressively worse for Bryan in this house would be is this house actually haunted, or is Bryan just nuts? SPOILERS will follow.
You’re not going to get an answer to this question in this movie ‘The Skeptic’, at least not the traditional answer that we’re used to getting in such movies. I should mention that before watching ‘The Skeptic’ that I observed a bit of a disconnect between the few press reviews that have much pretty skewered this film, versus the movie watching public which generally found the film somewhat enjoyable. Personally I liked the movie as I found it did have its creepy at moments, was well acted and cleverly written. The cleverness of the story is apparent when approaching the character of Bryan Beckett who is certainly experiencing something out of the ordinary while he staying at his aunt’s house, but is it supernatural? It does seem that way with the voices and the different images that Bryan is experiencing, toss in what the psychic is experiencing along with a priest played by the late Robert Prosky who feels that the house is cursed, then there is a compelling case for a supernatural event. On the other hand almost everything that Bryan is experiencing is explained away in someway or another through simple logic. Taking into consideration that he is the only person experiencing these events and compounded by the fact that the man has a forty year repressed trauma itching to get out, then it does look like this supernatural event is just a manifestation of his subconscious mind. The one event that doesn’t seemed to be explained away was when his young son, while wondering around the house, experienced a similar phenomenon which freaked the poor kid out, to which his parents passed off as the boy just imagining things.
The way that this was presented is the main reason I found ‘The Skeptic’ entertaining, complete with a rather open ended conclusion which asks the viewer to decide whether or not there was anything supernatural going on. Since I’m a bit of a skeptic myself and considering how effectively certain characters in the movie seemed to explain away a lot of what Bryan was experiencing I’ll lean towards the power of the human mind creating the experience. The final scene shows Bryan, either dead or unconscious, once again a little boy, going to a sunny picnic with his mother. Either the mother’s ghost is trying to atone for past sins or Bryan’s subconscious is creating the mother he always wanted with option two being the logical conclusion for me.
If one walks into this movie expecting a horror movie then I can see where it would disappoint because it’s not really that. It has its creepy moments but certainly not nearly enough to be classified as horror. What I saw was a psychological drama with some thriller aspects and in that regard I found it completely effective. ‘The Skeptic’ was a movie that made me think a little bit after the credits rolled and that’s a rare enough occurrence to garner favor from me.
