Scream Streams 2023: Rose Red Part 1 The Gathering

Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis), a Seattle professor of parapsychology, is obsessed with the mansion known as Rose Red and the original owner, Ellen Rimbauer. She is assembling a team of psychic investigators to spend a weekend at the house to help advance the field of parapsychology and redeem her own reputation.  The team she is assembling consists of Cathy Kramer (Judith Ivey), a middle aged woman who has the ability called automatic writing; Emery Waterman (Matt Ross), a rude young man who lives with his controlling and domineering mother and can see things from the past, a power called postcognition or retrocognition; Nick Hardaway (Julian Sands), a telepathic psychologist; Pam Asbury, a young beautiful woman with psychometric abilities (getting feelings or images when touching an object); Vic Kandinsky (Kevin Tighe), an older man with a heart condition who can see future events (precognition); Sissy (Melanie Lynskey) and Annie Wheaton (Kimberly J. Brown), two sisters, and while Sissy does not have any special abilities, Annie, who is autistic and rarely talks, is a very strong telekinetic with abilities far beyond the rest of the team. As the group is forming and preparing for their scientific research, Dr. Carl Miller (David Dukes), the psychology department head at the university Joyce teaches at, is attempting to discredit her and the investigation.  He enlists the help of Kevin Bollinger (Jimmi Simpson), a reporter for the school newspaper, who he convinces to hide in the mansion to get embarrassing photos of the group.  Kevin is attacked and disappears just before the researchers arrive.  Part 1 of this three-part miniseries concludes with the team arriving at the mansion and can feel the house’s power.

Rose Red was written by famed horror novelist, Stephen King, and was originally supposed to be a motion picture.  The premise is a loose adaptation of the 1963 film The Haunting, which itself is based on the 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.  It was originally pitched in 1996, but with the 1999 remake of The Haunting, King was convinced to rewrite it into a three-part miniseries adding in elements of The Haunting and the true history of the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California (where I used to live and have been to many times). Setting it in Seattle was only due to the securing of the Thornewood Estate as a shooting location. The miniseries began airing on January 27^th, 2002 on ABC.

The first episode is mainly expositional, giving the audience needed information to understand the background of a few of the characters and of the house and its original occupants. We needed to see the immense power that Annie wields, and we also needed to comprehend how awful Emery’s life was and what made him so unlikeable. The production value of the film is quite high, and although part 1 did not see an extensive use of special effects, what there was, was done well.  The film was directed by Craig R. Baxley who creates a spooky atmosphere. The music by Gary Chang is also well composed and adds appropriate tone to each scene. The story is well formulated, and the script is well written. The actors are well chosen, with Nancy Travis doing a great job as the strong leader of the group.  Matt Ross’ Emery makes the character both unlikeable and sympathetic.  Melanie Lynskey (Yellowjackets) as the sister to the extremely powerful Annie is one of the more likeable characters, wanting what is best for her sister to the detriment of her own life. Overall, this is a well-crafted miniseries and I enjoyed watching the first installment and look forward to watching the rest.

We dedicate this article to Julien Sands who went hiking in the mountains and disappeared for months until his body was eventually found.