Scream Streams 2023: Rose Red Part 2 The Awakening

A team of psychic investigators spend the weekend at Rose Red, a notoriously haunted mansion, in an attempt to prove that paranormal activity is real and to legitimize the field of parapsychology. Each team member has their own special gifts and their own inner demons to battle. The house was thought to have been a “dead cell” as no paranormal activity had been recorded there within the last five years.  Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis) intends to wake the house up with her team of specialists, especially Annie Wheaton, an autistic girl with immense telekinetic and telepathic abilities. Part two of this three-part miniseries, has the team finally entering into Rose Red and experiencing several strange phenomena. Visions of ghosts, strange voices being heard, and walls and rooms moving.  As the episode progresses, characters seem to disappear, but ghostly versions of themselves appear to lead other characters into danger, this culminates in the death of one of the characters from a heart attack.  Two characters, not on the team, are lured to Rose Red and specifically into the woods surrounding the house and attacked by ghosts.

The episode also shows the house waking up, although it doesn’t appear to have ever been truly asleep, more or less just taking a nap. We learn more details about the house and the various deaths that took place there.  Steve Rimbauer (Matt Keeslar), the last living member of the family that built and owns Rose Red, elaborates on his family’s history, but the more he talks about the house, the more his own psychic abilities begin to surface and his repressed memories of spending time at Rose Red begin to surface.

The performances remain strong with a great cast.  Julian Sands does a good job as the often sarcastic but kind Nick Hardaway, a telepath.  Emily Deschanel as Pam is also very good as both a beautiful and kind woman, but also does a good job as a seductress leading Vic astray. The script is well written and the story continues to be well conceived and executed, moving along at a good pace and rhythm.  There were more special effects in this episode and were well done especially for a 2002 made for television movie.  Over all this continues to be a really well put together haunted house story.