One of the most puzzling things I can probably tell you about myself is, despite the fact that my obsession with Halloween began at the age of four, I was very much a “scaredy cat” in childhood. In fact, most people found it quite odd that my favorite holiday was Halloween. Any kind of spooky storyline or imagery that didn’t directly relate to Halloween, was usually too much for me, even when it was something aimed at children. This was possibly due to my overactive imagination, but whatever the cause, I was not one of those kids who grew up enjoying horror.
As you probably already know, horror is my main genre of interest nowadays. And I recently decided to the revisit the movie that really kickstarted my interest in horror, the first horror film I ever really watched on my own, at the age of fourteen: the Stephen King miniseries Rose Red.
What got my attention about this movie, initially, was that Kimberly J. Brown was in it. Rose Red was released about three months after the second Halloweentown movie, in which Kimberly J. Brown starred as Marnie. I was obsessed with Halloweentown, despite the fact that the Disney Channel was still a premium channel at the time and we actually didn’t get it in my house. I actually used to cover my TV and just listen to the movies, while still being sad about both the fact that I couldn’t actually see them, and also that Halloweentown wasn’t a real place that I could move to. So, you can imagine how exciting the thought of actually being able to watch a movie starring the actress that played one of the main characters in Halloweentown was. It made me a little nervous, especially because my father was a Stephen King fan and I knew how hardcore some of his stories were, but my post-Halloween depression was hitting hard that year, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see “Marnie” again when next Halloween was still so far away.
Rose Red was first presented as a three-part miniseries, shown over the course of three nights: January 27th, 28th, and 31st, 2002. So, needless to say, my first real horror experience was a long one! But I greatly surprised myself by loving every second of it. I got so into the story; the fact that “Marnie from Halloweentown” was in it almost instantly became an afterthought, as I became more and more invested in the other characters, and Kimberly J. Brown’s character, Annie Wheaton, became a separate entity to me, no longer relating to Marnie at all. I thought about this story nonstop, talking about it constantly to anyone who would listen, and relishing in the fact that I wasn’t scared. It was Rose Red that made me realize that horror was, in fact, my thing, and was probably one of my first real steps toward fulfilling my need to celebrate Halloween all year round.
But what is Rose Red, you ask?
Rose Red is pretty much the ultimate haunted house story. Based somewhat on the real life Winchester Mystery House, Rose Red tells the tale of a house built in the early 1900s by a John Rimbauer, for his wife, Ellen, that not only continues to claim souls, but continues to grow even though everyone involved with the ownership and construction of the house is long dead. This is most likely due to the fact that Ellen Rimbauer was once told by a psychic that as long as construction on the house continued, she would never truly die.
Rose Red is, of course, a huge local legend in the town of Seattle, Washington, and it catches the attention of a professor of parapsychology at the fictional Beaumont University, Dr. Joyce Reardon. Joyce is truly obsessive about Rose Red (and her passion is something I’ve always related to, even when I first watched the movie at fourteen) and determined to prove what really happens there, by any means necessary. She assembles a team of psychics of various abilities (which was very interesting to me the first time I saw it, as most people tend to associate the word “psychic” strictly with precognition, but this team consists of a post-cognitive, an “automatic writer”, a “touch-know”, the telekinetic Annie Wheaton, and a man who seems to have many different, mysterious abilities) to spend Memorial Day weekend in Rose Red, made possible by Steven Rimbauer, her sometimes-lover and last remaining descendant of the Rimbauer clan.
Naturally, we begin to find out that Rose Red is not the “dead cell” that Joyce made it out to be to get everyone to agree to the trip, and all kinds of crazy, intense, and exciting things start happening, and we get some very interesting flashbacks that provide a lot of insight into the history of the house and the backstories of some of the characters. The first piece of the miniseries may be considered a slightly slow start as it sets the stage for things, but once it gets going, it doesn’t mess around. It’s pretty much nonstop action from the second the team steps foot into the house. And every character is developed just enough that you can’t help but really feel for them. Each member of the team is relatable in their own way, and the ghosts of the past may not always look particularly threatening, but you can’t help but feel their intensity.
This movie set off a lifelong love of haunted house stories for me, and if you’re into those kinds of stories, Rose Red is a must-watch. As many of you probably know, I am a huge American Horror Story fan, and the first season, Murder House, always makes me think of Rose Red.
Another interesting thing I actually only recently discovered about this movie (and the accompanying book, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, which later spawned a “prequel” type movie that I didn’t enjoy at all and therefore choose to ignore its existence) is that many people actually believed it was based on true events. It apparently was a bit of a controversy among the horror community and local mystery for Seattle residents around the time the movie was released.
I do remember a very, very official-looking website for Beaumont University popping up while I was poking around online one night shortly after the miniseries first aired. It freaked me out very briefly, but I soon figured out it was most likely a marketing scheme to drum up interest in the story. Many people, though, it seems, were not so quick to write it off.
While the Beaumont University website appears to be long gone, if you go to this HistoryLink page, you can still see many of the inquiries they received involving Rose Red and its characters, and some of them are pretty wild! I never realized that so many people truly believed this story to be real back then, and it almost makes me proud that, even though I was fourteen and paranoid, I realized it wasn’t. I’ve even seen inquiries sent to various genealogy sites about some of the characters featured in the movie! I guess, in 2002, Rose Red briefly became almost the second coming of War of the Worlds.
So yes, it turns out my first real foray into horror has a very interesting history. But if you have the time (the full miniseries has a runtime of 255 minutes, and trust me, it sucks you in and makes it difficult to stop watching) I highly recommend checking out what seems to be somewhat of a hidden horror gem, and is most definitely an important piece of my own personal history.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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