Review of "The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer" (2003) DVD

Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson for Horror.com

In Rose Red, a six-hour mini-series which aired in 2002 and became available on DVD in that same year, Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis) is a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle (it's not Maine, but hey -- Seattle is the serial killer capitol of the world, so don't complain) who wants to explore the haunted mansion known as Rose Red. Dr. Joyce is determined to prove to her colleagues that the supernatural is for real and along six specialists (each of whom possesses a different psychic ability), the scientist steps into Rose Red. But as one character later observes, Rose Red is rather like the Roach Motel.

Screenwriter Stephen King created a great atmosphere within Rose Red, and it's an often spooky (and sometimes genuinely scary) ghost story. It's a bit too jokey and self-aware to be a full-on knuckle-whitening horror movie, but I watched it all in one shot, and was never bored once. The acting is very good, as are the locations, set design and special effects.

If hours and hours of a good movie aren't enough for you, they've even included additional release material on this two disc set. There's art and storyboards, plus a short promo for a mockumentary on the "real" Rose Red, and best of all, an in-depth making-of featurette which includes interviews with cast and crew, and of course, Mr. King himself. I found the part which compares Rose Red with the real-life Winchester Mystery House most interesting. They also discuss how Dukes' untimely death was dealt with, since he was not finished filming yet.

All in all, I recommend Rose Red for any King or ghost-movie library.

As for its prequel, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (brand new on DVD), written by Ridley Pearson, I recommend it with some reserve. I'll confess that I have not read the book of the same name, but several readers have complained on public forums that the movie version lacks the detail and the creepiness of the novel. For someone who hasn't read that, but did see Rose Red, I say The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is all right. It's not creepy or scary and it's pretty slow-moving at times (thank the gods it's only 88 minutes, and not five hours long), but it still has some merit.

The prequel chronicles Ellen Rimbauer's (Lisa Brenner) unhappy marriage to a wealthy, sex-crazed business man, and how the mansion, Rose Red, came to be built and how it became haunted. 'Diary' spends more time on Ellen's morose marriage than it does on ghastly ghosts, and for that -- as a horror story -- the movie suffers. Still, as a compliment to your Rose Red DVD, it might be worth a purchase on sale. The acting is good, as is the production value and the costumes and sets. It's more a Gothic-style drama than it is horror.