I love a good haunted house movie -- heck, I love a fair share of bad haunted house movies -- but I do not love Fear House. It's not that the story is all that bad (although it is pretty bad), it's the fact that this film never manages to create any atmosphere whatsoever. The only thing remotely close to suspense comes in the form of wondering when and if the nerdy executive-type girl will finally get to let her hair down and allow her underlying hot-ness out for all to see -- and even that proved disappointing.

Fear House also suffers horribly from non-ending-itis, by which I mean it keeps going well after it should have rolled credits. It's like the director is a doctor who refuses to admit that his patient is dead; not only is no sign of a pulse ever detected, the corpse is left looking much the worse for wear from all of that wasted manic effort once all is said and done.

After a pretty silly opening scene shot in some kind of weird fuzzy-vision for no apparent reason, we accompany a motley crew of folks heading to a house out in the middle of nowhere in search of answers related to two disappearances. The one that really matters is Samantha Ballard (Aleece Jones), a young and successful writer who went missing almost a year earlier. Her brother Anthony (Matthew Stiller) and her agent Morty (Matthew Montgomery) -- along with Morty's lovely assistant Fiona (Olivia Price) -- have finally tracked her down and plan to bring her home -- and to her senses. For some murky reason, Eva Tinski (Meredith Barnett) thinks she will find her father there, as well. Then there's Samantha's no-account ex-husband and his new floozie secretly following up from the rear. Well, they do finally find Samantha, but she seems to have gone more than slightly cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. When she finally speaks, she warns everyone that "she" (the ghost of some little girl) won't let any of them leave -- in fact, anyone who tries to leave will die a death inspired by their deepest fears. You can probably guess how things go from this point on.

By and large, the acting in this film isn't all that bad. Unfortunately, though, Aleece Jones reminds me of Amy Irving, which makes the pivotal character of Samantha about as weird and spooky as, well, Amy Irving. The CGI and other special effects aren't exactly going to grip you, either, especially toward the end when the director apparently decided on the spur of the moment to try and pull off one spectacular death scene but ended up producing something laughably bad. And, after all of these problems, the movie refuses to end when it should have, and instead stumbles along for several more minutes.