Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on May 1, 2009, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Skeptic is about a man who inherits an old house from his aged aunt after she dies. He decides to move into the creepy old place and…
What, already? Hold on, I’ve only just started.
The reason Bryan Becket (Tim Daly) chooses to relocate into the manse is that things are strained at home with his wife Robin (Andrea Roth). That’s because Bryan, a lawyer by trade, is what a character in the beat-you-over-the-head script by director Tennyson Bardwell refers to as “one die-hard rationalist.” He has no room in his personality for sentiment (“You bet I’m unemotional!” he says at another choice moment), compares religious faith to belief in the Loch Ness Monster and certainly doesn’t think there’s any such things as ghosts, but that skepticism is bound to be tested when…
Again, really? Well, let me just get into the thick of the plot.
Once Bryan has settled into his aunt’s place, it isn’t long before he begins hearing odd noises and whispery voices. Then he starts seeing a mysterious woman in a mirror, who isn’t there when he turns to look again, and…
Jeez, at least let me finish a sentence here.
Despite having “tons of big cases” to deal with (which we never see him actually working on save for one brief montage), Bryan does seek answers for the strange stuff going on in his aunt’s old place. He consults a priest (Robert Prosky) and his psychiatrist (Ed Herrmann), and is told, “Be careful in that house” and queried, “Is there a history of mental illness in your family?” to which he replies, “I happen to be one of the most boringly sane people that you have ever fucking met!” (The Skeptic drops in gratuitous four-letter words this way every so often, as if to dispel the Lifetime-movie aura hanging over the whole thing.) And then Robin gets closer to the point by asking, “Is it your mother? Is that why you’re messed up?” and…
Yes, OK, I hear you, but I’m getting close to the end here.
Eventually, a quirky, sexy young woman named Cassie (Zoe Saldana) turns up on Bryan’s doorstep, sets one foot inside and intones, “There’s something here.” After breaking down Bryan’s defenses (“You know what? You’re very arrogant!”), Cassie, who proves to have psychic gifts, helps him discover what’s inside the locked trunk in the basement…no, wait, just give me another minute…whose contents include a creepy doll…all right, I’m almost finished…and one scene takes place on Halloween, with meaningful shots of a little girl in a scary costume…
Fine, fine, fine. Then how about this: Tom Arnold turns up as one of Bryan’s law-firm colleagues, overacting in the name of comic relief. You don’t see that in supernatural thrillers every day, do you?
The Skeptic is not a poorly made film; its production values (especially the cinematography by Hood of Horror’s Claudio Rocha) are polished, and the cast is solid, if clearly overqualified for their roles and dialogue. But all the professionalism behind the scenes and in front of the camera has been applied to a project that has absolutely nothing to add to what has already been done, in any number of vastly superior movies.
What? You’ve heard that too many times before as well?
Yeah, me too.
