(MOVIE REVIEW) Don’t let the misleading trailer fool you. Dream House is worth a watch.

Trailers. They can make or break a movie. They are also tornado magnets when assembled into a “trailer lot”, but that is another type of trailer. In regards to movies you would think that the geniuses in Hollywood would have figured out at some point that a good trailer means a better opening weekend, better word of mouth, and things like that. So, why would you make a movie look like something that it is not? This technique that they used actually almost made me NOT watch this movie, but I decided to give it a try. Turns out there is a lot more to this movie than what the trailer would suggest.

Plot: Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) is getting out of the grind. After years of being a well respected editor he is leaving his job to have more time with his wife and kids. They have purchased a new house that they intend to fix up in their spare time while Will writes his book. The night of celebration, after he tells his wife about his quitting, is cut short when one of his daughters claims to have seen someone outside of the window. Will dismisses this at first but becomes concerned when more and more incidents begin to happen. When the family discovers that a previous family died in that house, Will begins to dig deeper into the past. He finds that a brutal murder had taken place and he begins looking for information on the sole survivor of this gruesome murder, a man named Peter Ward. When his sleuthing leads him to a mental institution he is shown video footage of Peter Ward….and it appears to be Will in the video. When his world is turned upside down, Will must find a way to make sense of the madness, find out who is stalking his family, and find out what really happened in the Peter Ward Slaughter House.

If the above plot sounds a little confusing, don’t worry. It is. But it is confusing in a really good way. My earlier gripe was that the trailer tried to paint this movie as some overly supernatural thriller. That is not what it is at all. This movie is equal parts A Beautiful Mind and Memento. A great psychological thriller with more turns than a doorknob. It’s smart, well directed and well acted.

Worth the admission? YES. Forget what the trailer showed you and go watch this. Daniel Craig is great, Rachel Weisz is great, and the movie is shot beautifully.

Note: The only thing that I don’t agree with, and you will understand after seeing it, is that Craig is still in James Bond shape. They try to convince you that someone is a highly stressed editor with little/no time to see his family….but he has time to stop at Bally’s? Let me know if you agree