The first thing I'd have to say about The Haunting of Radcliffe House (Altar) is that it's too long, the lesser elements of this TV film failed to hold my attention, I got a bit bored with it at times. The positives, who doesn't love a ghost story, it's been done a hundred times before, but it's still watchable, it still has a few jumps, and the story itself is an interesting one. Antonia Clarke, playing daughter Penny, was easily the best performer throughout, she was great.

The bad bits, it's been done before, you could spend ages picking out the film references, there are too many to list, The Skeleton Key is heavily referenced. The acting is generally a little amateur, I'm a fan of Olivia Williams, but she isn't great here, maybe it's the clunky direction, but none of them seem well serviced, Antonia Clarke somehow manages to add something. I think they tried to be over creative, some of the 'arty' scenes were way off.

A good plod. 6/10

It doesn't seem to be a clever idea to move into a house which has a disturbing history or a disturbing man who lived there. For one reason or another, people do tend to still go into those places. For one, we wouldn't have those horror movies if they didn't. And sometimes they're pretty decent. Also do not forget, these are just movies.

Even if based in "reality" or at least at performances that feel real. The acting is more than decent here, the cast contributes to that, the scares are nicely thrown in there for good measure. They work most of the time and the ending is good in that terms too. You'll see most things coming of course, but that doesn't change the fact that this is watchable

"Altar" and "The Haunting of Radcliffe House" are the same film. The Hamilton family moves into the old Radcliffe house in order to restore it. The townies are leery of the place and are not much help. Meg (Olivia Williams) and her husband Alec (Matthew Modine) perform the bulk of the work. They have an asthmatic daughter Penny (Antonia Clarke) and a son (Adam Thomas Wright) who is underdeveloped plot wise.

While they are restoring they discover the proverbial secret room and this one has floor art, which is apparently an altar whose function is unknown. At this point strange things seem to happen as Alec punctured his finger and his blood fell to the floor in that room, "Hell Raiser" memory flash as it gets sucked up. The events build up slow as we discover what happens in that house.

This is a run of the mill ghost story. Nothing really new, but it was done well.

Guide: F-bomb, implied forced sex. Olivia Williams brief nudity (?) Statue nude being fondled.