00s Movie Review - The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

Director: Craig R. Baxley
Genre: Thriller/ Drama/ Mystery
Runtime: 88 minutes
Year: 2003
Starring: Laura Brenner, Steven Brand, Kate Burton, Brad Greenquist, Deirdre Quinn

Description: The wife (Laura Brenner) is an oil tycoon (Steven Brand) becomes engrossed in the sinister evil residing withing her Seattle mansion home.

Review: In 1910, wealthy oil industrialist John Rimbauer marries his timid girlfriend Ellen. As a wedding gift, Rimbauer builds a huge villa in Seattle called Rose Red. The construction of the house does not go smoothly, including a deadly shooting among the builders. The brand new couple goes to Africa for their honeymoon, where Ellen sees a different side of her husband. John tries to make Ellen partake in his insatiable perverted sexual preferences. In Africa, Ellen befriends Sukeena, who returns with her to Rose Red as her personal servant. John, meanwhile, indulges himself as the adulterous industrialist. Then strange things happen. The woman John is cheating with, mysteriously disappears in Rose Red. Sukeena has a feeling that other, dark powers are in the house, with Ellen appearing to be protected by the Rose Red house
“The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer” tells the story that precedes Stephen King’s “Rose Red”. This story reveals how the bizarre marriage between an influential woman and an adulterous industrialist in the early 20^th century sowed the seeds for the horrific events at their giant mansion in Seattle.
“The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer” was made for as a short television series and is based on the story of the same name written by Ridley Pearson. Pearson, of course, took inspiration from Stephen King’s story “Rose Red” in doing so. The original Stephen King story had been filmed as a miniseries in 2002. Most of the crew that worked on that series, also worked on “The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer”.
The promise that the story will shed more light on what preceded Stephen King’s “Rose Red” is not fulfilled. For the most “The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer” is a very boring movie. The story builds slowly and it ends very abruptly with a rather unsatisfying ending. The setting is beautiful, but there is hardly any tension or mystery.

Rating: 2/ 5