The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer is a made-for-TV movie that was based on a book of the same name.  The book was inspired by another movie (Rose Red) which was written by Steven King.  If this sounds like a convoluted mess, you should see the movie.

After some curious flash forwards that only serve to confuse the viewer (one of which doesn't even appear in the film,) the movie starts in 1910, with the engagement of the rich oil baron John Rimbauer (Steven Brand) to his girl friend Ellen (Lisa Brenner).  As a wedding gift, John presents Ellen with a magnificent house, named Rose Red.  They move in after their honeymoon, and Ellen settles down to the pampered life of a society woman.  There is one problem though.  John has a voracious sexual appetite and he starts having a series of affairs.  Ellen, of course, is hurt by this, but so is Rose Red.  You see, the house is alive and has fallen in love, for want of a better term, with Ellen.  To show its feelings, the house causes John's mistresses to disappear.  Though Rose Red can't stand to see Ellen hurt by her husbands infidelities, it is also jealous of anyone that Ellen loves, including her own children.

I'm probably at a disadvantage because I haven't read the book that the movie comes from, nor have I see the miniseries that the book was based on.  I still feel that a movie, even one based on a popular book, should flesh the characters out fully so that their actions seem natural and realistic.  This movie did not do that.  It seemed more like a series of skits rather than a movie with continuity.  Many of the characters motivations and actions are a mystery.  Why did the house fall in love with Ellen?  Why doesn't John think it's strange that people disappear in his house?  Why did Ellen's servant Sukeena (Tsidii Leloka) leave Africa and move half way across the globe with a couple she didn't know?  I spent a good portion of the movie scratching my head wondering why people were acting like they did.  Another problem was that I never really became convinced that John was a horrible and maniacal as everyone was saying he was.  Yes, he's a scumbag for not being faithful, but I didn't think that made him evil incarnate.  Because of this, I couldn't sympathize with Ellen who was fearful most of the time.

I also had a hard time suspending my disbelief.  There is a theory concerning fiction that say if you change one aspect of reality, people will be able to believe it, but if you change two, they won't.  So people will believe dinosaurs walking around a tropical island but they won't believe a movie with dinosaurs that shoot lasers out of their eyes.   The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer just asks too much.  This house that is alive.  Okay.  But this house can also psychically talk to people, control objects, cause people to kill themselves, and make people disappear into thin air.  And no one seems to really think this is strange.

Aside from these critiques, this was a solid film.  The acting was not outstanding, but fine.  Lisa Brenner did a good job as Ellen, her transformation from an innocent young girl to a self confident woman was very believable.  Through no fault of his own, Steven Brand's character was fairly bland and two dimensional most of the time.  If a female wanted anything from him they only had to promise him sex and he'd roll over.  Given the limitations of the script, Brand was able to put passion into the role in some the scenes.  In the scene where he squeezes ice onto Lisa Brenner's stomach he was very intense.  I can't help thinking how much better Brand's performance would be if he was given better material.

This film definitely had that made-for-TV feeling.  The fade-to-black every ten minutes for commercials and the lack of any nudity during the sex scenes had an artificial feeling to it.  Aside from that, the direction was okay.  Being a gothic horror movie, I was expecting some suspense, with little blood and guts.  Well, I was right about the gore, there was none, but there wasn't much suspense either.  The few scenes that were supposed to be scary fell flat for me.  In the séance scene some tension was building, but then the sequence just sort of ended.  There wasn't any payoff.  Even the climax of the movie was left me disappointed.  It was over much too quickly.
 

Audio:

I was pleasantly surprised to find this movie had a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound track.  Good use was made of all six speakers.  The rears were used very effectively with whispers and strange subtle noises coming from behind.  Use was also made of the front soundstage, and the front and rears blended effectively.  There were a lot of low rumblings that gave the subwoofer a good workout.  The mix was a little off in places.  There were a couple of times that whispers were mixed too low, and it was hard to make out what was said, but besides that it was a very good sound track.  There are subtitles in English and Spanish.

Video:

The picture was a little soft throughout this movie.  Given the gothic nature of the film, it could have been intentional.  The colors was slightly muted and a little dull, but not to the point of distraction.  There were some encoding errors to be found, like when the camera pans over the exterior of the house and the shingles seem to sway, but these were few and fairly minor.  An average transfer overall.  The movie is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

The Extras:

The only extra is a commentary by the writer of the novel and the screenplay, Ridley Pearson.  His audio track starts out fairly well but he runs out of steam before too long.  There are long gap in the commentary and a good portion of it is explaining what we are seeing on the screen.  "John's going to lock the attic now."  Stuff like that.  He does relate some interesting stories and facts about the movie, and points out where his original screen play was altered.  From his comments, I think what he originally wrote would have made a slightly better film.

Final Thoughts:

I can't help but think that people who have read the book will get a lot more out of this movie.  In a book, there is room to go into more details that would just make a movie too long.  It was this lack of details and convincing motivations that ruined the movie for me.  Fans of the original miniseries or people who've read the book might want to check it out, but everyone else should skip it.