Rose Red (film)
Encyclopedia
Rose Red is a television miniseries
scripted by horror novelist Stephen King
. The series was premiered in the United States on ABC
on January 27, 2002. The story involves a cavernous Seattle mansion called Rose Red, which is investigated by parapsychologist
Dr. Joyce Reardon and a team of psychic
s.
man John Rimbauer for his wife, Ellen. Rimbauer used much of his wealth to build the mansion, which was in the Tudor
-Gothic
style and situated on 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) of woodland in the heart of Seattle on the site of a Native American
burial ground. The house was rumored to be cursed even as it was being constructed; three construction workers were killed on the site, and a construction foreman
was murdered by a co-worker.
While honeymoon
ing in Africa, Ellen Rimbauer fell ill (from an unspecified sexually transmitted disease given to her by her husband) and made the acquaintance of Sukeena, a local tribeswoman. The two women became very close while Sukeena nursed Ellen back to health, and Sukeena accompanied the Rimbauers back to the newly-completed Rose Red. The Rimbauers had two children, Adam and April (born with a withered arm), but Ellen quickly became unhappy with her marriage to her philandering and neglectful husband. Deaths and mysterious disappearances became more commonplace at the house. One of John Rimbauer's friends died of a bee sting in the solarium, while his business partner (whom Rimbauer had cheated out of his share of the oil company's profits) hanged himself in front of Rimbauer's children. Eight-year-old April also disappeared in the house, and Sukeena was tortured by the police after being suspected of her murder. John Rimbauer appeared to commit suicide
by throwing himself from an upper window (although viewers of the miniseries later learn that he was murdered by Ellen and Sukeena).
Ellen and Sukeena continued to live in the house after John Rimbauer's death. After a spiritualist seance, Ellen came to believe that if she continued to build and expand the house, she would never die. She used nearly all of her dead husband's fortune to continually add to the home over the next several decades, enlarging it significantly. The mysterious disappearances continued to occur, however, and both Ellen Rimbauer and Sukeena eventually disappeared in Rose Red.
For several years after Ellen's disappearance, only servants occupied Rose Red. Adam Rimbauer, who inherited the house, lived there for a short time with his wife. However, he abandoned Rose Red after witnessing several paranormal
events. After his death and with the family fortune spent away, his wife sold off many of the home's antique furnishings, and generated some income by permitting the fictional "Seattle Historical Society" to give tours of the house. These tours ceased in 1972, after a participant disappeared while on a tour of the mansion. Investigations for paranormal phenomena were conducted on the property in the 1960s and 1970s. But these also ended, and the house fell into disrepair.
The miniseries begins in the year 2001. Steven Rimbauer, the great grandson of John and Ellen Rimbauer, has inherited Rose Red. He has been offered a substantial sum of money to have the house torn down and the site developed into condominium
s. But he is intrigued by the paranormal history of the house, and has agreed to allow one more investigation of the mansion.
girl Annie Wheaton (played as a child by Kristen Fischer and later as a teenager by Kimberly J. Brown
) is drawing a picture of a house as her parents and older sister, Rachel (Melanie Lynskey
), argue outside her room. As she draws lines down over the house in her picture, rocks fall through the roof of an identical house belonging to an elderly couple down the street whose dog had bitten Annie, severely damaging the building.
The setting now switches to 2001. Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis
) is a professor at the fictional Beaumont University who teaches classes on psychic phenomena. Kevin Bollinger (Jimmi Simpson
), a reporter for the campus newspaper, sceptically questions her about a trip she will be taking to Rose Red, an ostensibly haunted and abandoned mansion in nearby Seattle. Professor Carl Miller (David Dukes
), Joyce's departmental
chair who questions the validity of Joyce's research, orders Bollinger to follow Reardon and spy on a meeting with the group of psychics she is taking to Rose Red. The group includes Victor "Vic" Kandinsky (Kevin Tighe
), an elderly precognate
with heart disease
; Pam Asbury (Emily Deschanel), a young psychometric; Cathy Kramer (Judith Ivey
), a middle-aged automatic writer
; Nick Hardaway (Julian Sands
), a telepath
with remote viewing
capabilities; and Emery Waterman (Matt Ross
), a young post-cognate
. The group meets with Steven Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar
), the last descendent of Ellen (Julia Campbell
) and John Rimbauer (John Procaccino), in an auditorium at the college. Bollinger takes a photo of the group joining hands in a circle, and the photo and an article ridiculing Reardon are published in the campus newspaper. Dr. Miller takes Bollinger to Rose Red and drops him off, instructing him to obtain additional embarrassing photos once the group of psychics arrives. Kevin is greeted by Sukeena (Tsidii Le Loka
) at the front door, who tells him that he is expected. Not realizing she is a ghost, Bollinger enters the mansion. He becomes trapped in the solarium, where he is pulled off-screen by an unseen force.
The back-stories of psychics Emery Waterman and Annie Wheaton are introduced. Emery Waterman is a rude, sarcastic, and obnoxious young man under the control of his domineering mother, Patricia Waterman (Laura Kenny). The audience learns that Rachel Wheaton now cares for Annie Wheaton, who rarely speaks and who refers to Rachel as "Sister." The audience also learns that Dr. Reardon is having a sexual affair with Steven Rimbauer, although the film remains unclear whether she loves him or is merely using him to gain access to Rose Red.
[ Melanie Lynskey
] and a teenaged Annie Wheaton [ Kimberly J. Brown
] ) arrive at Rose Red. The team tours the mansion. Joyce and Steven point out that the home contains many optical illusion
s as well as an upside-down room and a library with a mirrored floor. The team finds Bollinger's cell phone, and Steven calls Miller to confront him over his attempt to discredit the group. That night, Emery sees the ghost of an actress that disappeared from the house decades earlier; Pam dreams of the decomposing body of Kevin Bollinger; the Wheaton sisters are visited by a ghost under the bed and in the closet; and Cathy sees something moving under the carpet and her blankets. Later in the night, Pam is lured outside into the garden.
The next morning, Dr. Miller receives a mysterious voicemail
message from Steven saying that Bollinger slit his wrists and wrote Miller's name in his blood before expiring. A message that clealy was not sent by Stephen but a trap set up by Rose Red and its inhabitants. Alarmed, Miller drives to the mansion. Patricia Waterman, too, has driven to the mansion after being unable to reach her son via cell phone. The two arrive simultaneously, and their cars collide in the driveway when Mrs. Waterman swerves to avoid what she believes to be a figure running across the road. Terrified, Mrs. Waterman begins to run through the forest on the grounds of the mansion while calling for her son. Miller, wanting to get her insurance information, pursues her. Inside Rose Red, Emery hears his mother's cries but dismisses them as an auditory illusion
created by the haunted house.
On the other side of the house, Pam leads Vic into the garden toward a pond with a statue of Ellen in it. She suddenly disappears. When Vic looks down into the pond, he sees what he believes to be Pam's dead body. He attempts to pull her out of the water, but the body vanishes and he is left clutching only her nightgown. He panics and runs back toward the house. Looking back, he sees the statue come to life and has a heart attack. Vic tries to draw the attention of Emery (who is inside the house), but Emery again believes this to be an apparition and refuses to open the window. Nick arrives and tries to open the window, but it will not open and the glass cannot be broken. Vic collapses and dies in full view of Emery and Nick. Out in the woods, Mrs. Waterman is stopped and knocked unconscious by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger.
. Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, Rose Red's windows and doors mysteriously open again. Emery Waterman, realizing that his mother's screams were not an illusion, rushes outside to look for his mother. He runs into Dr. Miller, who warns him to stay away and then flees. Emery chases Miller but cannot catch him, so he returns to Rose Red. Miller, continuing to frantically run around the grounds of the house, is found and attacked by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger.
Emery attempts to convince the others that they should all leave. They refuse, and Emery tries to depart on his own. As he does so, he runs into the ghosts of Pam Asbury and Deanna Petrie (Yvonne Sciò
), the movie star who vanished in the house in the 1940s. Emery has the power to make apparitions disappear by repeating the phrase "not there," and avoids the deadly fate of his mother and Dr. Miller. As Emery is about to leave Rose Red, Annie Wheaton wakes and via psychokinesis
causes the doors of Rose Red to slam shut. Emery's hand is caught in the door, and some of his fingers are severed
. While the others assist Emery, Joyce Reardon asks Annie to continue to keep the doors and windows sealed, promising to give her the dollhouse if she does so. Steven, however, soon discovers that he is able to communicate with Annie telepathically, and she begins to form a friendship with him.
Later, Steven relives some repressed memories
of a visit to the house with his drunken mother during which a ghostly Ellen Rimbauer appeared to him and called on Steven to aid her in continuing Rose Red's unending construction. Emery, meanwhile, suspects that Annie, not some "spirit of Rose Red", is keeping the house sealed. Nick confirms Emery's suspicions, and then informs the group that Kevin Bollinger appeared to have hanged himself in the library. The group begins to speculate that Rose Red has never been in a dormant state, and that the mansion's supernatural powers are linked to Annie and Steven (whose psychic abilities become apparent only when he is in the house because of his familial connection to the property). Nick correctly guesses that Joyce brought the psychics to the house in an attempt to reawaken Rose Red rather than simply investigate it.
The wounded Emery suggests that Annie be killed in order to allow everyone to escape, alarming the rest of the group. While in the kitchen, Cathy Kramer is attacked by Mrs. Waterman and is rescued by Nick. The two decide to tie up the deranged woman and decide to leave her in the kitchen. They agree not to inform Emery so that the unstable young man does not become more unbalanced. A ghostly Sukeena appears and drags Mrs. Waterman off into the dark wine cellar. As Nick and Cathy head back toward the main hall, the house changes around them and they become lost. A mysterious shape under the carpet chases them, and they flee. The shape begins to catch up to them, and Nick shoves Cathy into a room and slams the door behind her, turning around just in time to see a skeletal monster rushing up to him. With silence in the hallway, Cathy opens the door again but finds no sign of Nick or the entity in the empty hallway. As the house continues to change around her, Cathy ends up in the attic
. Suddenly overcome by the urge to automatically write, she witnesses the murder of John Rimbauer by Ellen and Sukeena. Steven and Rachel, meanwhile, decide to look for Nick and Cathy. They find Cathy in the attic, where she is about to be attacked by a corpse-like creature. Their presence seemingly prevents the house from acting, and the corpse drops lifeless to the floor. The corpse's withered arm lets them deduce that the carcass is that of Steven's missing great-aunt (and Ellen's daughter), April Rimbauer.
The group reunites in the main hall. Emery attempts to attack Annie with a fireplace poker. Using psychokinesis, Annie animates a suit of armor
and attempts to kill Emery with a halberd
. Neither attack succeeds, and Joyce calms both individuals. In an attempt to uncover the secret of Rose Red, Steve creates a telepathic link between Cathy and Annie, and Cathy begins to engage in automatic writing. Annie begins to draw pictures of boulders striking the house, smashed doors, and broken glass, and soon doors and windows all over the house are opening and closing violently and glass in the windows shatters. Rocks begin to fall, destroying Mrs. Waterman's car and causing severe damage to Rose Red. Cathy automatically writes "help us" and "open the doors," prompting Annie to unseal the house. Steven, Emery, Cathy, Rachel, and Annie make their escape from Rose Red, but Joyce, now clearly insane, refuses to leave. The group is attacked by the spectre of Ellen Rimbauer, but Annie prevents Ellen from coming after them. Mrs. Waterman's ghost leaps from a mirror and attempts to draw Emery into the spirit realm, but Emery, with the assistance of Steven and Cathy, resists his mother for the first time in his life, and Mrs. Waterman vanishes again. The survivors flee to their cars as boulders rain down on Rose Red. Back in the house, Joyce suddenly realizes too late that she does want to leave, but is surrounded by the ghosts of Rose Red: Nick, Pam, Vic, Ms. Waterman, Miller, Bollinger, Sukeena, Ellen Rimbauer, and Deanna Petrie. She screams in terror as the film fades to black.
Six months later, the survivors visit Rose Red, just before the mansion is due to be demolished and replaced by condominiums. It remains unsaid whether or not the evil that inhabits the house will leave with its destruction or go on to curse the condos. They pay their last respects to the dead by laying red roses on the path leading up to the house. As they drive away, music can be heard, and the ghosts of Ellen Rimbauer, Sukeena, and Joyce Reardon watch the survivors depart from the tower window.
Stephen King
has a brief cameo appearance
as a pizza delivery man.
.
King originally pitched Rose Red to Steven Spielberg
as a feature film in the early 1990s, in part as a remake of the 1963 film The Haunting
. The project went into turnaround and a complete script was written, but Spielberg demanded more thrills and action sequences while King wanted more horror. King and Spielberg mutually agreed to shelve the project after several years of work, with King buying back the rights to the script. King returned to the project in 1999, completed a revised script, and unsuccessfully pitched the script to director Mick Garris
(with whom King had worked on the 1992 film Sleepwalkers
, the 1994 TV miniseries The Stand
, and the 1997 TV miniseries The Shining
). King next proposed the project on Friday, June 18, 1999, to producer
Mark Carliner (with whom King had worked on two miniseries, The Shining and 1999's Storm of the Century
). Carliner agreed to produce the script as a feature film, and King agreed to start script revisions on Monday, June 21, but King was hit by an automobile while walking on a road near his home on Saturday, June 19, 1999.
Several references are made in the script to other fictional works regarding ghosts, including The Haunting of Hill House
, Ghostbusters
, and A Christmas Carol
. King based his concept for Rose Red on the Winchester Mystery House
, but added the concept that the house would keep expanding on the inside even though it looked the same from the outside. Although the project was no longer intended to be an adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, the script continued to borrow heavily from Shirley Jackson's novel. The team of researchers strongly resembles that assembled in Jackson's novel, and the rain of rocks is identical to one described in Jackson's story.
The action originally was set in Los Angeles, California
. Pre-production
began in July 2000. After a five-month search, the producers discovered Thornewood Castle in Lakewood, Washington
, and secured permission to use the mansion as the facade of Rose Red. King subsequently rewrote the script and set the action in Seattle, Washington, to accommodate the change. The production paid $500,000 to have many of the rooms on the first floor of Thornewood restored to their early 20th century state for filming of the miniseries. Dead trees and dead ivy were used to make Thornewood appear abandoned.
Carliner, Thomas H. Brodek, and Robert F. Phillips; director
Craig R. Baxley; production designer
Craig Stearns; and visual effects supervisor
Stuart Robertson (who won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on the 1997 film What Dreams May Come
). These individuals and others had worked on Storm of the Century two years earlier.
Filming began on August 22, 2000, and ended in mid-December 2000. The budget for the miniseries was originally $3 million, but its final cost was closer to $35 million. The computer-operated ghost puppets created by XFX cost $150,000 each. Interior sets were built in three former airplane hangars at the abandoned Sand Point Naval Base in Seattle. More than 200000 square feet (18,580.6 m²) of interior sets were built. The largest set contained a full-scale version of the great hall at Rose Red, including a fireplace, columns, grand staircase, adjacent dining hall, and doorway to the solarium (the last being a feature inspired by the Shirley Jackson novel). Two bedrooms and the billiard room at Thornewood Castle were used for location shots. Sadly, actor David Dukes
died of a heart attack on October 11, 2000, in Spanaway, Washington
, while shooting Rose Red. He was due to film his death scene the following day. A double
was used for shots of the Dr. Carl Miller character running through foliage, and King rewrote some scenes to feature other characters instead of Miller. The intersection of Spring Street and Sixth Avenue in Seattle was used for the fictional location of Rose Red; other Seattle locations used in the miniseries include a section of Main Street and a house on Capitol Hill (which is destroyed by a rain of stones in the miniseries).
Post-production took six months, and the miniseries was delivered to the ABC television network in early September 2001.
In 2000, two years before the miniseries aired, the producers contracted with author Ridley Pearson
to write a tie-in
novel
, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red
, under the pseudonym "Dr. Joyce Reardon" (one of the main characters of the miniseries). The novel presented itself as nonfiction, and claimed to be the actual diary
of Ellen Rimbauer (wife of the builder of Rose Red). The work was originally intended to be an architectural book featuring photos and drawings of the fictional Rose Red house with the supernatural elements subtly woven into the text and photos, but Pearson (building on several references to a diary in King's script) wrote it as Ellen Rimbauer's diary instead. Inspired by the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project
, King came up with the idea of presenting the novel as real by having "Dr. Joyce Reardon" edit the "diary." King also inserted a reference into the book's forward that a "best-selling author had found the journal in Maine", so that fans would be misled into concluding that King had written the work. The ruse worked. Fans and the press speculated for some time that Stephen King or his wife Tabitha King
had written the book until Pearson was revealed to be the novel's author. The companion novel was a big hit, rising high on several bestseller lists. Intended to be a promotional item rather than a stand-alone work, its popularity spawned a 2003 prequel television miniseries to Rose Red, titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer
. The novel tie-in idea was repeated on Stephen King's next project, the miniseries Kingdom Hospital
. Richard Dooling
, King's collaborator on Kingdom Hospital and writer of several episodes in the miniseries, published a fictional diary, The Journals of Eleanor Druse, in 2004.
A fictional website for Beaumont University (where Dr. Joyce Reardon, one of the main characters in the miniseries, taught parapsychology
) was established. It provided information on the history of Rose Red, background on the Rimbauer family, and limited information on various disappearances at the mansion. The site is no longer functional, but the site can still be seen through web archive programs such as the Wayback Machine
.
The marketing campaign was considered highly successful. Many readers came to believe that The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer was real. The fake Beaumont University site was bombarded with emails from fans who were convinced that Dr. Joyce Reardon, Beaumont University, and Rose Red were real.
A DVD, running 4 hours and 14 minutes, was released in 2007.
Critical reception to the miniseries was mixed. The New York Times
called it fun if not terribly original:
Another critic noted that, while the miniseries moves along "effectively," the effort seemed "padded to more than four hours" with "needless exposition ... and repetitious spookhouse sequences". Daily Variety was more critical of the miniseries, however, noting that "All of the elements that make a King story so accessible and entertaining are missing from this production." Daily Variety praised director Craig Baxley's direction, cinematographer David Connell's camera work, Craig Stearns' special effects and production design, and young actress Kimberly Brown's performance. But the magazine concluded that the over-long script and "backstories, particularly the origin of the house, are so convoluted and ill conceived, even the best f/x can't save the day." Critic Laura Fries had particularly severe criticism for actress Nancy Travis:
Other critics panned the screenplay as "dumbly, numbly entertaining pastiche" and "a strained struggle for cogent characters and a coherent story line", but praised the production for its sound, visual effects, music, and make-up.
Other reviewers found little to praise in the miniseries, however. "Rose Red is a rambling wreck of a film...about as scary as a hangnail," said the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
. "...It is made-for-TV pablum, meant to satisfy unsophisticated palates the way restaurants make ordinary food seem appetizing with highfalutin menus." USA Today
focused on what it felt was a poor story and slow pacing: "...a numbingly predictable series of seen-it-before jolts...played at exceedingly slow speed." Many critics were unimpressed with the special visual effects which others had found praiseworthy. "Rose Red," said the New York Daily News, "...is a haunted-house story that's told so slowly, it's almost inert. The climactic special effects are even worse, guaranteeing that—should you last to the end—the only screaming you'll be doing is with laughter." Critic and academician Tony Magistrale
felt the miniseries over-relied on special effects so much that it felt "oppressive", concluding:
Most damning of all, he concluded, was the lack of character development: "...there are few characters in the miniseries that we care about—and certainly no one to inspire the heroic imagination, as does Wendy Torrance in the minseries version of The Shining or Mike Anderson in Storm[of the Century] ."
. As a young girl, Carrie telekinetically
dropped stones on her house, and Annie does the same thing at both the beginning and end of Rose Red.
The character of Deanna Petrie shares the last name of the young protagonist Mark Petrie of King's 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot.
Rose Red (the mansion) is referred to in King's Black House as one of the places where "slippage" occurs.
The character Pam has the special power of 'The Touch' (although the ability is not referred to with this name, it is essentially the same) like the characters Alain Johns
and Jake Chambers
have in The Dark Tower
novels.
Also 'the Red' often stands for evil forces (as opposed to 'the White') in several Novels. The red king for example in The Dark Tower
or the red color in Duma Key
.
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
scripted by horror novelist Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
. The series was premiered in the United States on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
on January 27, 2002. The story involves a cavernous Seattle mansion called Rose Red, which is investigated by parapsychologist
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
Dr. Joyce Reardon and a team of psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
s.
Plot
Dr. Joyce Reardon, an unorthodox university psychology professor, leads a team of psychics to the massive and antiquated Seattle mansion known as Rose Red in an attempt to record data which would constitute scientific proof of paranormal phenomena. The mansion is publicly thought to be haunted, as at least 23 people have either disappeared or died there and the interior of the house appears to change or increase in size. Reardon's team unleashes the spirit of the house, leading to several deaths and the revelation of the mansion's secrets.History of Rose Red
According to information revealed at various points in the miniseries, Rose Red was built in 1906 by wealthy oilOil
An oil is any substance that is liquid at ambient temperatures and does not mix with water but may mix with other oils and organic solvents. This general definition includes vegetable oils, volatile essential oils, petrochemical oils, and synthetic oils....
man John Rimbauer for his wife, Ellen. Rimbauer used much of his wealth to build the mansion, which was in the Tudor
Tudor style architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
-Gothic
Gothic Revival architecture
The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...
style and situated on 40 acres (161,874.4 m²) of woodland in the heart of Seattle on the site of a Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
burial ground. The house was rumored to be cursed even as it was being constructed; three construction workers were killed on the site, and a construction foreman
Construction foreman
A construction foreman is the worker or tradesman who is in charge of a construction crew. While traditionally this role has been assumed by a senior male worker, the title in the modern sense is gender non-specific in intent...
was murdered by a co-worker.
While honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
ing in Africa, Ellen Rimbauer fell ill (from an unspecified sexually transmitted disease given to her by her husband) and made the acquaintance of Sukeena, a local tribeswoman. The two women became very close while Sukeena nursed Ellen back to health, and Sukeena accompanied the Rimbauers back to the newly-completed Rose Red. The Rimbauers had two children, Adam and April (born with a withered arm), but Ellen quickly became unhappy with her marriage to her philandering and neglectful husband. Deaths and mysterious disappearances became more commonplace at the house. One of John Rimbauer's friends died of a bee sting in the solarium, while his business partner (whom Rimbauer had cheated out of his share of the oil company's profits) hanged himself in front of Rimbauer's children. Eight-year-old April also disappeared in the house, and Sukeena was tortured by the police after being suspected of her murder. John Rimbauer appeared to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by throwing himself from an upper window (although viewers of the miniseries later learn that he was murdered by Ellen and Sukeena).
Ellen and Sukeena continued to live in the house after John Rimbauer's death. After a spiritualist seance, Ellen came to believe that if she continued to build and expand the house, she would never die. She used nearly all of her dead husband's fortune to continually add to the home over the next several decades, enlarging it significantly. The mysterious disappearances continued to occur, however, and both Ellen Rimbauer and Sukeena eventually disappeared in Rose Red.
For several years after Ellen's disappearance, only servants occupied Rose Red. Adam Rimbauer, who inherited the house, lived there for a short time with his wife. However, he abandoned Rose Red after witnessing several paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
events. After his death and with the family fortune spent away, his wife sold off many of the home's antique furnishings, and generated some income by permitting the fictional "Seattle Historical Society" to give tours of the house. These tours ceased in 1972, after a participant disappeared while on a tour of the mansion. Investigations for paranormal phenomena were conducted on the property in the 1960s and 1970s. But these also ended, and the house fell into disrepair.
The miniseries begins in the year 2001. Steven Rimbauer, the great grandson of John and Ellen Rimbauer, has inherited Rose Red. He has been offered a substantial sum of money to have the house torn down and the site developed into condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
s. But he is intrigued by the paranormal history of the house, and has agreed to allow one more investigation of the mansion.
Part 1
The miniseries opens with a prologue set in 1991. The young autisticAutism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
girl Annie Wheaton (played as a child by Kristen Fischer and later as a teenager by Kimberly J. Brown
Kimberly J. Brown
Kimberly J. Brown is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Marah Lewis #3 on The Guiding Light and Marnie Piper in the Halloweentown film series .-Career:...
) is drawing a picture of a house as her parents and older sister, Rachel (Melanie Lynskey
Melanie Lynskey
Melanie Jayne Lynskey is a New Zealand actress best known for playing Charlie Harper's neighbor/stalker Rose on Two and a Half Men, and a range of characters in films such as Win Win, Up in the Air, The Informant!, Away We Go, Flags of Our Fathers, Shattered Glass, Sweet Home Alabama, Ever After...
), argue outside her room. As she draws lines down over the house in her picture, rocks fall through the roof of an identical house belonging to an elderly couple down the street whose dog had bitten Annie, severely damaging the building.
The setting now switches to 2001. Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis
Nancy Travis
Nancy Ann Travis is an American actress. She is known for her roles in films Three Men and a Baby and its sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady , Married to the Mob , Air America , Internal Affairs , So I Married an Axe Murderer , Greedy , and Fluke...
) is a professor at the fictional Beaumont University who teaches classes on psychic phenomena. Kevin Bollinger (Jimmi Simpson
Jimmi Simpson
James Raymond "Jimmi" Simpson is an American actor. He has had recurring roles on the television shows 24, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Psych, My Name Is Earl, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Late Show with David Letterman...
), a reporter for the campus newspaper, sceptically questions her about a trip she will be taking to Rose Red, an ostensibly haunted and abandoned mansion in nearby Seattle. Professor Carl Miller (David Dukes
David Dukes
David Coleman Dukes was an American character actor.-Life:Dukes was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a highway patrolman...
), Joyce's departmental
Academic department
An academic department is a division of a university or school faculty devoted to a particular academic discipline. This article covers United States usage at the university level....
chair who questions the validity of Joyce's research, orders Bollinger to follow Reardon and spy on a meeting with the group of psychics she is taking to Rose Red. The group includes Victor "Vic" Kandinsky (Kevin Tighe
Kevin Tighe
Kevin Tighe is an American character actor primarily known for his roles on television. Tighe is best known for his role as Roy DeSoto, a senior paramedic, on the NBC series Emergency! . He and Randolph Mantooth, his partner in the series, have remained close friends...
), an elderly precognate
Precognition
In parapsychology, precognition , also called future sight, and second sight, is a type of extrasensory perception that would involve the acquisition or effect of future information that cannot be deduced from presently available and normally acquired sense-based information or laws of physics...
with heart disease
Heart disease
Heart disease, cardiac disease or cardiopathy is an umbrella term for a variety of diseases affecting the heart. , it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, accounting for 25.4% of the total deaths in the United States.-Types:-Coronary heart disease:Coronary...
; Pam Asbury (Emily Deschanel), a young psychometric; Cathy Kramer (Judith Ivey
Judith Ivey
Judith Lee Ivey is an American actress and director.-Personal life:Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Lee , a teacher, and Nathan Aldean Ivey, a college instructor and dean. She spent 1965-1968 in Dowagiac, Michigan, where she attended Union High School through tenth grade...
), a middle-aged automatic writer
Automatic writing
Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.-History:...
; Nick Hardaway (Julian Sands
Julian Sands
Julian M. Sands is an English actor, known for his roles in the Best Picture nominee The Killing Fields, the cult film Warlock, A Room with a View, Arachnophobia, Vatel, the television series 24 and as Jor-El in the television series Smallville.-Career:Sands began his film career appearing in...
), a telepath
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
with remote viewing
Remote viewing
Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means, in particular, extra-sensory perception or "sensing with mind"...
capabilities; and Emery Waterman (Matt Ross
Matt Ross
Matthew Brandon "Matt" Ross is an American actor best known for his role as Alby Grant in the HBO series, Big Love.-Filmography:*Urusei Yatsura 2 *Desperation Rising *PCU...
), a young post-cognate
Retrocognition
Retrocognition , from the Latin retro meaning "backward, behind" and cognition meaning "knowing", describes "knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means". The term was coined by Frederic W. H...
. The group meets with Steven Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar
Matt Keeslar
Matt Keeslar is an American actor.Keeslar was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Fred Keeslar and Ann Ferguson, who divorced in 1977....
), the last descendent of Ellen (Julia Campbell
Julia Campbell
Julia Campbell , is an American actress, who is best known for her role as the "mean girl," Christie Masters-Christianson in the feature film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.-Career:...
) and John Rimbauer (John Procaccino), in an auditorium at the college. Bollinger takes a photo of the group joining hands in a circle, and the photo and an article ridiculing Reardon are published in the campus newspaper. Dr. Miller takes Bollinger to Rose Red and drops him off, instructing him to obtain additional embarrassing photos once the group of psychics arrives. Kevin is greeted by Sukeena (Tsidii Le Loka
Tsidii Le Loka
Tsidii Le Loka is an actress, vocalist, and composer originally from South Africa and The Kingdom of Lesotho. She is best known for creating the role of Rafiki in the original Broadway production of Disney's stage musical, The Lion King.-Theatre:...
) at the front door, who tells him that he is expected. Not realizing she is a ghost, Bollinger enters the mansion. He becomes trapped in the solarium, where he is pulled off-screen by an unseen force.
The back-stories of psychics Emery Waterman and Annie Wheaton are introduced. Emery Waterman is a rude, sarcastic, and obnoxious young man under the control of his domineering mother, Patricia Waterman (Laura Kenny). The audience learns that Rachel Wheaton now cares for Annie Wheaton, who rarely speaks and who refers to Rachel as "Sister." The audience also learns that Dr. Reardon is having a sexual affair with Steven Rimbauer, although the film remains unclear whether she loves him or is merely using him to gain access to Rose Red.
Part 2
Joyce and the group of psychics (now joined by Rachel "Sister" WheatonMelanie Lynskey
Melanie Jayne Lynskey is a New Zealand actress best known for playing Charlie Harper's neighbor/stalker Rose on Two and a Half Men, and a range of characters in films such as Win Win, Up in the Air, The Informant!, Away We Go, Flags of Our Fathers, Shattered Glass, Sweet Home Alabama, Ever After...
Kimberly J. Brown
Kimberly J. Brown is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Marah Lewis #3 on The Guiding Light and Marnie Piper in the Halloweentown film series .-Career:...
Optical illusion
An optical illusion is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a perception that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source...
s as well as an upside-down room and a library with a mirrored floor. The team finds Bollinger's cell phone, and Steven calls Miller to confront him over his attempt to discredit the group. That night, Emery sees the ghost of an actress that disappeared from the house decades earlier; Pam dreams of the decomposing body of Kevin Bollinger; the Wheaton sisters are visited by a ghost under the bed and in the closet; and Cathy sees something moving under the carpet and her blankets. Later in the night, Pam is lured outside into the garden.
The next morning, Dr. Miller receives a mysterious voicemail
Voicemail
Voicemail is a computer based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products and services, using an ordinary telephone...
message from Steven saying that Bollinger slit his wrists and wrote Miller's name in his blood before expiring. A message that clealy was not sent by Stephen but a trap set up by Rose Red and its inhabitants. Alarmed, Miller drives to the mansion. Patricia Waterman, too, has driven to the mansion after being unable to reach her son via cell phone. The two arrive simultaneously, and their cars collide in the driveway when Mrs. Waterman swerves to avoid what she believes to be a figure running across the road. Terrified, Mrs. Waterman begins to run through the forest on the grounds of the mansion while calling for her son. Miller, wanting to get her insurance information, pursues her. Inside Rose Red, Emery hears his mother's cries but dismisses them as an auditory illusion
Auditory illusion
An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing, the aural equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or "impossible" sounds...
created by the haunted house.
On the other side of the house, Pam leads Vic into the garden toward a pond with a statue of Ellen in it. She suddenly disappears. When Vic looks down into the pond, he sees what he believes to be Pam's dead body. He attempts to pull her out of the water, but the body vanishes and he is left clutching only her nightgown. He panics and runs back toward the house. Looking back, he sees the statue come to life and has a heart attack. Vic tries to draw the attention of Emery (who is inside the house), but Emery again believes this to be an apparition and refuses to open the window. Nick arrives and tries to open the window, but it will not open and the glass cannot be broken. Vic collapses and dies in full view of Emery and Nick. Out in the woods, Mrs. Waterman is stopped and knocked unconscious by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger.
Part 3
Annie Wheaton has discovered a dollhouse that is a replica in miniature of Rose Red. While standing on a chair in an attempt to reach the dollhouse, she falls and is knocked unconscious. Rachel Wheaton and Steven Rimbauer see her fall and attempt to render first aidFirst aid
First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
. Meanwhile, on the other side of the house, Rose Red's windows and doors mysteriously open again. Emery Waterman, realizing that his mother's screams were not an illusion, rushes outside to look for his mother. He runs into Dr. Miller, who warns him to stay away and then flees. Emery chases Miller but cannot catch him, so he returns to Rose Red. Miller, continuing to frantically run around the grounds of the house, is found and attacked by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger.
Emery attempts to convince the others that they should all leave. They refuse, and Emery tries to depart on his own. As he does so, he runs into the ghosts of Pam Asbury and Deanna Petrie (Yvonne Sciò
Yvonne Sciò
-Biography:Sciò appeared in the music video for Tal Bachman's song "She's So High. Sciò married Stefano Dammicco on November 12, 2005.-Filmography:*La Masseria Delle Allodole *The Pink Panther *Torrente 3: el Protector...
), the movie star who vanished in the house in the 1940s. Emery has the power to make apparitions disappear by repeating the phrase "not there," and avoids the deadly fate of his mother and Dr. Miller. As Emery is about to leave Rose Red, Annie Wheaton wakes and via psychokinesis
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
causes the doors of Rose Red to slam shut. Emery's hand is caught in the door, and some of his fingers are severed
Amputation
Amputation is the removal of a body extremity by trauma, prolonged constriction, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventative surgery for...
. While the others assist Emery, Joyce Reardon asks Annie to continue to keep the doors and windows sealed, promising to give her the dollhouse if she does so. Steven, however, soon discovers that he is able to communicate with Annie telepathically, and she begins to form a friendship with him.
Later, Steven relives some repressed memories
Repressed memory
Repressed memory is a hypothetical concept used to describe a significant memory, usually of a traumatic nature, that has become unavailable for recall; also called motivated forgetting in which a subject blocks out painful or traumatic times in one's life...
of a visit to the house with his drunken mother during which a ghostly Ellen Rimbauer appeared to him and called on Steven to aid her in continuing Rose Red's unending construction. Emery, meanwhile, suspects that Annie, not some "spirit of Rose Red", is keeping the house sealed. Nick confirms Emery's suspicions, and then informs the group that Kevin Bollinger appeared to have hanged himself in the library. The group begins to speculate that Rose Red has never been in a dormant state, and that the mansion's supernatural powers are linked to Annie and Steven (whose psychic abilities become apparent only when he is in the house because of his familial connection to the property). Nick correctly guesses that Joyce brought the psychics to the house in an attempt to reawaken Rose Red rather than simply investigate it.
The wounded Emery suggests that Annie be killed in order to allow everyone to escape, alarming the rest of the group. While in the kitchen, Cathy Kramer is attacked by Mrs. Waterman and is rescued by Nick. The two decide to tie up the deranged woman and decide to leave her in the kitchen. They agree not to inform Emery so that the unstable young man does not become more unbalanced. A ghostly Sukeena appears and drags Mrs. Waterman off into the dark wine cellar. As Nick and Cathy head back toward the main hall, the house changes around them and they become lost. A mysterious shape under the carpet chases them, and they flee. The shape begins to catch up to them, and Nick shoves Cathy into a room and slams the door behind her, turning around just in time to see a skeletal monster rushing up to him. With silence in the hallway, Cathy opens the door again but finds no sign of Nick or the entity in the empty hallway. As the house continues to change around her, Cathy ends up in the attic
Attic
An attic is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building . Attic is generally the American/Canadian reference to it...
. Suddenly overcome by the urge to automatically write, she witnesses the murder of John Rimbauer by Ellen and Sukeena. Steven and Rachel, meanwhile, decide to look for Nick and Cathy. They find Cathy in the attic, where she is about to be attacked by a corpse-like creature. Their presence seemingly prevents the house from acting, and the corpse drops lifeless to the floor. The corpse's withered arm lets them deduce that the carcass is that of Steven's missing great-aunt (and Ellen's daughter), April Rimbauer.
The group reunites in the main hall. Emery attempts to attack Annie with a fireplace poker. Using psychokinesis, Annie animates a suit of armor
Armour
Armour or armor is protective covering used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an object, individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat, or from damage caused by a potentially dangerous environment or action...
and attempts to kill Emery with a halberd
Halberd
A halberd is a two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 14th and 15th centuries. Possibly the word halberd comes from the German words Halm , and Barte - in modern-day German, the weapon is called Hellebarde. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on...
. Neither attack succeeds, and Joyce calms both individuals. In an attempt to uncover the secret of Rose Red, Steve creates a telepathic link between Cathy and Annie, and Cathy begins to engage in automatic writing. Annie begins to draw pictures of boulders striking the house, smashed doors, and broken glass, and soon doors and windows all over the house are opening and closing violently and glass in the windows shatters. Rocks begin to fall, destroying Mrs. Waterman's car and causing severe damage to Rose Red. Cathy automatically writes "help us" and "open the doors," prompting Annie to unseal the house. Steven, Emery, Cathy, Rachel, and Annie make their escape from Rose Red, but Joyce, now clearly insane, refuses to leave. The group is attacked by the spectre of Ellen Rimbauer, but Annie prevents Ellen from coming after them. Mrs. Waterman's ghost leaps from a mirror and attempts to draw Emery into the spirit realm, but Emery, with the assistance of Steven and Cathy, resists his mother for the first time in his life, and Mrs. Waterman vanishes again. The survivors flee to their cars as boulders rain down on Rose Red. Back in the house, Joyce suddenly realizes too late that she does want to leave, but is surrounded by the ghosts of Rose Red: Nick, Pam, Vic, Ms. Waterman, Miller, Bollinger, Sukeena, Ellen Rimbauer, and Deanna Petrie. She screams in terror as the film fades to black.
Six months later, the survivors visit Rose Red, just before the mansion is due to be demolished and replaced by condominiums. It remains unsaid whether or not the evil that inhabits the house will leave with its destruction or go on to curse the condos. They pay their last respects to the dead by laying red roses on the path leading up to the house. As they drive away, music can be heard, and the ghosts of Ellen Rimbauer, Sukeena, and Joyce Reardon watch the survivors depart from the tower window.
Characters in the present
| Name | Occupation | Psychic Power | Played By | Character's fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dr. Joyce Reardon | Parapsychology Parapsychology The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research... Professor |
None | Nancy Travis Nancy Travis Nancy Ann Travis is an American actress. She is known for her roles in films Three Men and a Baby and its sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady , Married to the Mob , Air America , Internal Affairs , So I Married an Axe Murderer , Greedy , and Fluke... |
Killed by the ghosts of Ellen Rimbauer, Vic Kandinsky, Deanna Petrie, Patricia Waterman, Carl Miller, Kevin Bollinger, Sukeena, Nick Hardaway, and Pam Asbury. |
| Steven Rimbauer | Unknown | None at first; Telepathy Telepathy Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference... only when inside Rose Red |
Matt Keeslar Matt Keeslar Matt Keeslar is an American actor.Keeslar was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Fred Keeslar and Ann Ferguson, who divorced in 1977.... |
Survivor |
| Rachel "Sister" Wheaton | Waitress | None | Melanie Lynskey Melanie Lynskey Melanie Jayne Lynskey is a New Zealand actress best known for playing Charlie Harper's neighbor/stalker Rose on Two and a Half Men, and a range of characters in films such as Win Win, Up in the Air, The Informant!, Away We Go, Flags of Our Fathers, Shattered Glass, Sweet Home Alabama, Ever After... |
Survivor |
| Annie Wheaton | Unknown | Telekinetic, Telepathic | Kimberly J. Brown Kimberly J. Brown Kimberly J. Brown is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Marah Lewis #3 on The Guiding Light and Marnie Piper in the Halloweentown film series .-Career:... |
Survivor |
| Cathy Kramer | Unknown | Automatic Writing Automatic writing Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious and/or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content.-History:... |
Judith Ivey Judith Ivey Judith Lee Ivey is an American actress and director.-Personal life:Ivey was born in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of Dorothy Lee , a teacher, and Nathan Aldean Ivey, a college instructor and dean. She spent 1965-1968 in Dowagiac, Michigan, where she attended Union High School through tenth grade... |
Survivor |
| Emery Waterman | Unknown | Retrocognition Retrocognition Retrocognition , from the Latin retro meaning "backward, behind" and cognition meaning "knowing", describes "knowledge of a past event which could not have been learned or inferred by normal means". The term was coined by Frederic W. H... |
Matt Ross Matt Ross Matthew Brandon "Matt" Ross is an American actor best known for his role as Alby Grant in the HBO series, Big Love.-Filmography:*Urusei Yatsura 2 *Desperation Rising *PCU... |
Survivor, lost several fingers |
| Nick Hardaway | Psychologist | Telepathic, Remote Viewing Remote viewing Remote viewing is the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target using paranormal means, in particular, extra-sensory perception or "sensing with mind"... |
Julian Sands Julian Sands Julian M. Sands is an English actor, known for his roles in the Best Picture nominee The Killing Fields, the cult film Warlock, A Room with a View, Arachnophobia, Vatel, the television series 24 and as Jor-El in the television series Smallville.-Career:Sands began his film career appearing in... |
Disappeared while saving Cathy, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Pam Asbury | Unknown | Psychometry | Emily Deschanel | Killed (seemingly drowned in pond while in a trance). |
| Victor "Vic" Kandinsky | Unknown | Precognitive | Kevin Tighe Kevin Tighe Kevin Tighe is an American character actor primarily known for his roles on television. Tighe is best known for his role as Roy DeSoto, a senior paramedic, on the NBC series Emergency! . He and Randolph Mantooth, his partner in the series, have remained close friends... |
Died of a heart attack. |
| Dr. Carl Miller | Psychology Department Head | None | David Dukes David Dukes David Coleman Dukes was an American character actor.-Life:Dukes was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a highway patrolman... |
Killed by the ghost of Kevin Bollinger. (David Dukes passed away from a heart attack while filming on location for the movie. The movie is therefore dedicated to him) |
| Patricia Waterman | Unknown | None | Laura Kenny | Killed by the ghost of Sukeena. |
| Kevin Bollinger | College Student/Newspaper Reporter | None | Jimmi Simpson Jimmi Simpson James Raymond "Jimmi" Simpson is an American actor. He has had recurring roles on the television shows 24, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Psych, My Name Is Earl, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and The Late Show with David Letterman... |
Killed off-screen by an unseen force. |
| Unknown | Pizza Delivery | None | Stephen King Stephen King Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books... |
Endures rudeness from the psychics |
Characters from the past
| Name | Occupation | Psychic Power | Played By | Character's Fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| John P. Rimbauer | Oil tycoon | None | John Procaccino | Murdered (pushed from a tower window at Rose Red) by Ellen Rimbauer and Sukeena. |
| Ellen Gilchrist-Rimbauer | Homemaker | None | Julia Campbell Julia Campbell Julia Campbell , is an American actress, who is best known for her role as the "mean girl," Christie Masters-Christianson in the feature film Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.-Career:... |
Disappeared while living at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Sukeena | Ellen Rimbauer's maid | None | Tsidii Le Loka Tsidii Le Loka Tsidii Le Loka is an actress, vocalist, and composer originally from South Africa and The Kingdom of Lesotho. She is best known for creating the role of Rafiki in the original Broadway production of Disney's stage musical, The Lion King.-Theatre:... |
Disappeared while living at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Adam Rimbauer | Student | None | Justin T. Milner | Survivor |
| April Rimbauer | None | None | Paige Gordon Paige Gordon Paige Parenti-Gordon is a retired female diver from Canada, who won the silver medal in the women's 3 metres springboard event at the 1991 Pan American Games in Havana, Cuba.... |
Disappeared while living at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Deanna Petrie | Actress and friend of Ellen Rimbauer | None | Yvonne Sciò Yvonne Sciò -Biography:Sciò appeared in the music video for Tal Bachman's song "She's So High. Sciò married Stefano Dammicco on November 12, 2005.-Filmography:*La Masseria Delle Allodole *The Pink Panther *Torrente 3: el Protector... |
Disappeared while a guest at Rose Red, becoming a spectral inhabitant of the mansion. |
| Douglas Posey | John Rimbauer's former business partner | None | Don Alder | Hanged himself in front of the Rimbauer children. |
Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
has a brief cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
as a pizza delivery man.
Production
Author Stephen King had always wanted to write a script about a haunted house, having been inspired by an alleged haunted house in his home town of Durham, MaineDurham, Maine
Durham is a town in Androscoggin County, Maine, United States. The population was 3,419 at the 2000 census. It is included in both the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine Metropolitan New England City and Town Area.-Geography:According to the United...
.
King originally pitched Rose Red to Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
as a feature film in the early 1990s, in part as a remake of the 1963 film The Haunting
The Haunting (1963 film)
The Haunting is a 1963 British psychological horror film by American director Robert Wise and adapted by Nelson Gidding from the novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It stars Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn. The film centers around the conflict between...
. The project went into turnaround and a complete script was written, but Spielberg demanded more thrills and action sequences while King wanted more horror. King and Spielberg mutually agreed to shelve the project after several years of work, with King buying back the rights to the script. King returned to the project in 1999, completed a revised script, and unsuccessfully pitched the script to director Mick Garris
Mick Garris
Mick Garris is an American filmmaker and screenwriter born in Santa Monica, California.-Biography:He is best known for his adaptations of Stephen King stories, such as directing the horror film Sleepwalkers starring Madchen Amick and is the creator of the Showtime series Masters of Horror...
(with whom King had worked on the 1992 film Sleepwalkers
Sleepwalkers (film)
Sleepwalkers is a 1992 American horror film based on an original screenplay by Stephen King and directed by Mick Garris.-Plot summary:...
, the 1994 TV miniseries The Stand
The Stand (TV miniseries)
# Project Blue [1:33]# The Dream Begins [2:08]# On the Road to Kansas [3:57]# The Trashmen in Vegas [1:58]# Headin' West [1:56]# Larry & Nadine [2:38]# Mother Abigail [3:10]# 'Sorry Mister, I Don't Understand' [2:54]# Mid Country [3:22]...
, and the 1997 TV miniseries The Shining
The Shining (TV miniseries)
The Shining is a three-part television miniseries based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. Directed by Mick Garris from King's teleplay, the series was first aired in 1997.-Plot:...
). King next proposed the project on Friday, June 18, 1999, to producer
Television producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
Mark Carliner (with whom King had worked on two miniseries, The Shining and 1999's Storm of the Century
Storm of the Century
Storm of the Century, alternatively known as Stephen King's Storm of the Century, is a 1999 horror TV miniseries written by Stephen King and directed by Craig R. Baxley. Unlike many other King mini-series, Storm of the Century was not based upon a Stephen King novel - King wrote it as a screenplay...
). Carliner agreed to produce the script as a feature film, and King agreed to start script revisions on Monday, June 21, but King was hit by an automobile while walking on a road near his home on Saturday, June 19, 1999.
Script
After surgery and a month's recovery in the hospital, King returned home and completed work on the Rose Red script over the next month, recasting the project as a television miniseries. The writing proved to be therapeutic.Several references are made in the script to other fictional works regarding ghosts, including The Haunting of Hill House
The Haunting of Hill House
For the Richard Matheson novel, see Hell House, made into a film titled The Legend of Hell House.The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel by author Shirley Jackson. Finalist for the National Book Award and considered one of the best literary ghost stories published during the twentieth century,...
, Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters is a 1984 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. The film stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, and Rick Moranis and follows three eccentric parapsychologists in New York City, who start a...
, and A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...
. King based his concept for Rose Red on the Winchester Mystery House
Winchester Mystery House
The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known mansion in California. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester. It was continuously under construction for 38 years and is reported to be haunted. It now serves as a tourist attraction...
, but added the concept that the house would keep expanding on the inside even though it looked the same from the outside. Although the project was no longer intended to be an adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, the script continued to borrow heavily from Shirley Jackson's novel. The team of researchers strongly resembles that assembled in Jackson's novel, and the rain of rocks is identical to one described in Jackson's story.
The action originally was set in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. Pre-production
Pre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
began in July 2000. After a five-month search, the producers discovered Thornewood Castle in Lakewood, Washington
Lakewood, Washington
Lakewood is a city in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 58,163 at the 2010 census.-History:Lakewood was officially incorporated on February 28, 1996. Historical names include Lakewood Center and Lakes District...
, and secured permission to use the mansion as the facade of Rose Red. King subsequently rewrote the script and set the action in Seattle, Washington, to accommodate the change. The production paid $500,000 to have many of the rooms on the first floor of Thornewood restored to their early 20th century state for filming of the miniseries. Dead trees and dead ivy were used to make Thornewood appear abandoned.
Filming and post-production
The production team included producersTelevision producer
The primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
Carliner, Thomas H. Brodek, and Robert F. Phillips; director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
Craig R. Baxley; production designer
Production designer
In film and television, a production designer is the person responsible for the overall look of a filmed event such as films, TV programs, music videos or adverts. Production designers have one of the key creative roles in the creation of motion pictures and television. Working directly with the...
Craig Stearns; and visual effects supervisor
Visual effects supervisor
In the context of film and television production, a visual effects supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director and/or producers through the use of visual effects...
Stuart Robertson (who won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for his work on the 1997 film What Dreams May Come
What Dreams May Come (film)
What Dreams May Come is a 1998 American supernatural drama film, starring Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Annabella Sciorra. The film is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Richard Matheson, and was directed by Vincent Ward. The title is taken from a line in Hamlet's To be, or not to...
). These individuals and others had worked on Storm of the Century two years earlier.
Filming began on August 22, 2000, and ended in mid-December 2000. The budget for the miniseries was originally $3 million, but its final cost was closer to $35 million. The computer-operated ghost puppets created by XFX cost $150,000 each. Interior sets were built in three former airplane hangars at the abandoned Sand Point Naval Base in Seattle. More than 200000 square feet (18,580.6 m²) of interior sets were built. The largest set contained a full-scale version of the great hall at Rose Red, including a fireplace, columns, grand staircase, adjacent dining hall, and doorway to the solarium (the last being a feature inspired by the Shirley Jackson novel). Two bedrooms and the billiard room at Thornewood Castle were used for location shots. Sadly, actor David Dukes
David Dukes
David Coleman Dukes was an American character actor.-Life:Dukes was born in San Francisco, California, the son of a highway patrolman...
died of a heart attack on October 11, 2000, in Spanaway, Washington
Spanaway, Washington
Spanaway is a census-designated place in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 27,227 at the 2010 census. Spanaway is an unincorporated area near Tacoma, and is often identified together with the more urban, less wealthy Parkland....
, while shooting Rose Red. He was due to film his death scene the following day. A double
Look-alike
A look-alike is a person who closely resembles another person. In popular Western culture, a look-alike is a person who bears a close physical resemblance to a celebrity, politician or member of royalty. Many look-alikes earn a living by making guest appearances at public events or performing on...
was used for shots of the Dr. Carl Miller character running through foliage, and King rewrote some scenes to feature other characters instead of Miller. The intersection of Spring Street and Sixth Avenue in Seattle was used for the fictional location of Rose Red; other Seattle locations used in the miniseries include a section of Main Street and a house on Capitol Hill (which is destroyed by a rain of stones in the miniseries).
Post-production took six months, and the miniseries was delivered to the ABC television network in early September 2001.
Marketing
A $200,000 promotional marketing campaign for the miniseries began in November 2001. Marketing of the film presented the movie as based on actual events.In 2000, two years before the miniseries aired, the producers contracted with author Ridley Pearson
Ridley Pearson
Ridley Pearson, born on March 13, 1953 in Glen Cove, New York, is an American writer. Pearson has historically written suspense and thriller novels for an adult audience, but has also begun branching out by writing adventure books for children....
to write a tie-in
Tie-in
A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red is a 2001 novel by Ridley Pearson focusing on the life of the fictional John and Ellen Rimbauer and the construction of their mansion, Rose Red, in the early 20th century. Built on an old Indian burial ground, Rose Red is considered haunted and...
, under the pseudonym "Dr. Joyce Reardon" (one of the main characters of the miniseries). The novel presented itself as nonfiction, and claimed to be the actual diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
of Ellen Rimbauer (wife of the builder of Rose Red). The work was originally intended to be an architectural book featuring photos and drawings of the fictional Rose Red house with the supernatural elements subtly woven into the text and photos, but Pearson (building on several references to a diary in King's script) wrote it as Ellen Rimbauer's diary instead. Inspired by the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American horror film pieced together from amateur footage. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company. The film relates the story of three student filmmakers The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American horror film pieced together from amateur...
, King came up with the idea of presenting the novel as real by having "Dr. Joyce Reardon" edit the "diary." King also inserted a reference into the book's forward that a "best-selling author had found the journal in Maine", so that fans would be misled into concluding that King had written the work. The ruse worked. Fans and the press speculated for some time that Stephen King or his wife Tabitha King
Tabitha King
Tabitha King is an American author and activist. She is married to writer Stephen King.-Family:King met her husband, author Stephen King, in college through her work-study job in the Fogler Library. Their daughter Naomi Rachel was born in 1970. They married on January 2, 1971...
had written the book until Pearson was revealed to be the novel's author. The companion novel was a big hit, rising high on several bestseller lists. Intended to be a promotional item rather than a stand-alone work, its popularity spawned a 2003 prequel television miniseries to Rose Red, titled The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (film)
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is a 2003 television miniseries prequel to the film Rose Red . Directed by Craig R. Baxley, the film stars Lisa Brenner as Ellen Rimbauer, Steven Brand as John Rimbauer, and Tsidii Le Loka as Sukeena.-Synopsis:...
. The novel tie-in idea was repeated on Stephen King's next project, the miniseries Kingdom Hospital
Kingdom Hospital
Kingdom Hospital is a thirteen-episode television miniseries based on Lars von Trier's The Kingdom , which was developed by horror writer Stephen King in 2004 for American television...
. Richard Dooling
Richard Dooling
Richard Patrick Dooling is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his novel White Man's Grave, a finalist for the 1994 National Book Award for Fiction, and for co-producing and co-writing the 2004 ABC miniseries Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital.Dooling's first novel, Critical...
, King's collaborator on Kingdom Hospital and writer of several episodes in the miniseries, published a fictional diary, The Journals of Eleanor Druse, in 2004.
A fictional website for Beaumont University (where Dr. Joyce Reardon, one of the main characters in the miniseries, taught parapsychology
Parapsychology
The term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
) was established. It provided information on the history of Rose Red, background on the Rimbauer family, and limited information on various disappearances at the mansion. The site is no longer functional, but the site can still be seen through web archive programs such as the Wayback Machine
Wayback Machine
The Wayback Machine is a digital time capsule created by the Internet Archive non-profit organization, based in San Francisco, California. It is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. The service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the Archive calls a "three...
.
The marketing campaign was considered highly successful. Many readers came to believe that The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer was real. The fake Beaumont University site was bombarded with emails from fans who were convinced that Dr. Joyce Reardon, Beaumont University, and Rose Red were real.
Releases
The miniseries originally aired on the ABC broadcast television network in the United States on three nights, from January 27–29, 2002.A DVD, running 4 hours and 14 minutes, was released in 2007.
Reception
Rose Red, which aired during sweeps, was a ratings hit with an average of 18.5 million viewers over three nights and an 8.5 rating.Critical reception to the miniseries was mixed. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called it fun if not terribly original:
Another critic noted that, while the miniseries moves along "effectively," the effort seemed "padded to more than four hours" with "needless exposition ... and repetitious spookhouse sequences". Daily Variety was more critical of the miniseries, however, noting that "All of the elements that make a King story so accessible and entertaining are missing from this production." Daily Variety praised director Craig Baxley's direction, cinematographer David Connell's camera work, Craig Stearns' special effects and production design, and young actress Kimberly Brown's performance. But the magazine concluded that the over-long script and "backstories, particularly the origin of the house, are so convoluted and ill conceived, even the best f/x can't save the day." Critic Laura Fries had particularly severe criticism for actress Nancy Travis:
Other critics panned the screenplay as "dumbly, numbly entertaining pastiche" and "a strained struggle for cogent characters and a coherent story line", but praised the production for its sound, visual effects, music, and make-up.
Other reviewers found little to praise in the miniseries, however. "Rose Red is a rambling wreck of a film...about as scary as a hangnail," said the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
. "...It is made-for-TV pablum, meant to satisfy unsophisticated palates the way restaurants make ordinary food seem appetizing with highfalutin menus." USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
focused on what it felt was a poor story and slow pacing: "...a numbingly predictable series of seen-it-before jolts...played at exceedingly slow speed." Many critics were unimpressed with the special visual effects which others had found praiseworthy. "Rose Red," said the New York Daily News, "...is a haunted-house story that's told so slowly, it's almost inert. The climactic special effects are even worse, guaranteeing that—should you last to the end—the only screaming you'll be doing is with laughter." Critic and academician Tony Magistrale
Tony Magistrale
Anthony Samuel Magistrale is a Professor in English at the University of Vermont since 1983. He received a B.A. in 1974 from Allegheny College, and from the University of Pittsburgh an M.A. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1981. He has written several books about Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe.-References:...
felt the miniseries over-relied on special effects so much that it felt "oppressive", concluding:
Most damning of all, he concluded, was the lack of character development: "...there are few characters in the miniseries that we care about—and certainly no one to inspire the heroic imagination, as does Wendy Torrance in the minseries version of The Shining or Mike Anderson in Storm
Links to other King novels
The character of Annie Wheaton is similar to another Stephen King character, Carrie White—the main character from Stephen King's first published novel, CarrieCarrie (novel)
Carrie is American author Stephen King's first published novel, released in 1974. It revolves around the eponymous Carrie, a shy high-school girl, who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who tease her...
. As a young girl, Carrie telekinetically
Psychokinesis
The term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
dropped stones on her house, and Annie does the same thing at both the beginning and end of Rose Red.
The character of Deanna Petrie shares the last name of the young protagonist Mark Petrie of King's 1975 novel 'Salem's Lot.
Rose Red (the mansion) is referred to in King's Black House as one of the places where "slippage" occurs.
The character Pam has the special power of 'The Touch' (although the ability is not referred to with this name, it is essentially the same) like the characters Alain Johns
Alain Johns
Alain Johns is a fictional character in Stephen King's Dark Tower series.Alain was a member of Roland Deschain's original ka-tet along with Cuthbert Allgood and Jamie De Curry. In the original version of The Gunslinger, Alain was not mentioned, although Roland recalls having a friend named 'Allen'...
and Jake Chambers
Jake Chambers
John "Jake" Chambers is a fictional character in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels. He first appeared in the short story "The Way Station" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in April 1980, which was later compiled as one of the chapters of the first Dark Tower book, The...
have in The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower
Dark Tower may refer to:* The Dark Tower , an unfinished novel by C. S. Lewis* Barad-dûr the fortress of Sauron in the fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings* The Dark Tower , a 1933 comedy by George S...
novels.
Also 'the Red' often stands for evil forces (as opposed to 'the White') in several Novels. The red king for example in The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower
Dark Tower may refer to:* The Dark Tower , an unfinished novel by C. S. Lewis* Barad-dûr the fortress of Sauron in the fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings* The Dark Tower , a 1933 comedy by George S...
or the red color in Duma Key
Duma Key
Duma Key is a horror novel by American novelist Stephen King published in 2008. The book reached #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List. It is King's first novel to be set in Florida or Minnesota.-Plot:...
.
External links
- Thornewood Castle, used as a shooting location for the Rose Red mansion