Screen writers Adam Simon & Tim Metchalfe have set out to create the epitome of a haunted house story, supposedly based on a true situation (though area residents have denied it actually did occur) - the kind that mixes tortured, trapped stereotypical dead with religious gobbledegook and redeeming biblical platitudes - none of which makes much sense, but which is suitable fodder for a fairly scary 92-minutes in the noisy dark.

Hitchcock would say the flick is loaded with McGuffins - manufactured issues tossed into the plot to "make sense." A family moves into a grand old isolated house that starts to reek with sinister portent. More than things go bump in the night. They are visual more than auditory; they flash by, suddenly appear then disappear, make unpleasant things happened - all accompanied by Robert J. Kral's screaming use of strings, kettle drums, tympani, and thuds punctuating every eerie shot arranged by director Peter Cornwell - and all carried off by a fine case including Virginia Madsen as the mother who holds the family together .

The neatest McGuffin relies on the fact that the house was once a funeral home, built over a cemetery from which dozens of bodies had vanished some years ago, now creating havoc with the new occupants. Every haunted house device is here - doors opening & closing of their own volition, lights on & off, shadows down hallways & stairs creating frightening images, etc. No cliché is left unused, and until they pile up without relenting and finally lose their shock effect. That's when the music reaches screeching pitch, shots in rapid succession rush by, and the ubiquitous massive climactic pitch brings it to its ultimate conclusion.

No doubt about it. The devices work to lift you off your seat more than once - until they become redundant and diminish their shock value. As a stock horror flick, it does exactly what it's supposed to do. If one ignores logic and common sense - and true religious doctrines - it can satisfy, for a little while, at any rate.