Synopsis for Dream House
The film begins in the city, with Will Atenton (Daniel Craig) leaving his job as a successful editor in the city in order to spend more time with his wife, Libby (Rachel Weisz), and their two daughters and write a book. At first, they appear to be living the American dream in an idyllic home they have just moved into. Early in his time at the house, Will notices tension between his neighbour, Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts), and her ex-husband, Jack, who is picking up their teenage daughter. Despite the seemingly perfect house, it soon becomes apparent to Will that something isn't right. After asking around, he learns of terrible murders that occurred there five years earlier - a man, Peter Ward, the previous owner of the house, shot and killed his wife and two daughters. What's more, Will's young daughters claim to begin seeing a man watching them through the windows at night. Will and his wife begin to uncover more information about the murders, despite the local police refusing to help them. Even his neighbour, Anne, who he has talked to on a few occasions, remains strangely distant and won't tell him anything. However, after uncovering some old things in a hidden attic space, they find out that Peter Ward had already been released from custody (as there was no concrete evidence that he actually killed his family) and is living in a half-way house -- and there is a lot of public controversy about it. When Will's wife sees the strange man that her daughters had already claimed was watching the house (and the police fail to help), Will, believing it to be Peter Ward, sets off to the half-way house to find him and try and settle things. Will goes to the half-way house and sneaks into what he believes is Ward's room (the number of which he found by looking at the mail pigeon hole marked with his name) and there he finds a picture of his wife and daughters. A man comes in and, extremely angry, Will threatens him to stay away from his family. However, the man is not Peter Ward, but in fact a man named Boyce (Elias Koteas). Confused, Will returns home. Further research leads him to the psychiatric hospital where Peter Ward was initially hospitalised. There, he is told that he is Peter Ward and that Will Atenton is a false identity he invented to mask the trauma of losing his wife and daughters. Although he doesn't believe it, the seams begin to show in what he once thought was reality. More and more evidence crops up, showing that the wife and daughters he believed he had are, rather, just projections in his mind of the family that he supposedly murdered. He begins to slip between realities -- One being his idyllic, yet completely invented, life with his wife and daughters, and the other, in which his house is in ruins and he is the accused murderer of his family. After his house is deemed by the city as being in an unlivable state, he is evicted - but does not want to leave as whenever he is in this house he returns to his fantasy land with his long dead family. As well as this, he is still unsure which reality is correct. Anne, Peter's (Will's) neighbour, takes him in, giving him a bath and washing his clothes. She believes his innocence and even her daughter, who had previously had nightmares about the murders, is comfortable with his presence. However, Anne's ex-husband, Jack, somehow hears that Peter is with his ex-wife in her home and comes over to collect his daughter, despite him not yet having custody for a few days. Anne refuses but her daughter obliges in order to avoid any conflict -- yet she runs away as soon as she is out the door. Jack goes after her, and Anne, before following, gives Peter the business card of the psychiatric hospital in which he was previously treated, which she found while washing his clothes. He goes to see his psychiatrist who urges him to come back to treatment, but she does not know if she believes his innocence or not and Peter storms back to his boarded up house. There, he is once again immersed in his fantasy land, but he realises now that he is Peter Ward, which he tries to convince to his wife. She won't believe it, putting it down to a fever and Peter's high temperature. However, when the girls also get this fever and she finds gaping wounds on the girls' backs she realises he was telling the truth. Peter later asks her to recall the night of the murders and she tells him everything she can remember - that she heard someone coming up the stairs and the girls, thinking it was their dad, went out to greet him. She also came out, only to find a man with a gun. Peter is jerked from his fantasy by Anne, who is coming to tell him to get out of the house, but before they can leave, Jack and Boyce are there ready to kill Anne and blame the murder on Peter. We learn that the original murders, of Peter's family, were actually carried out by Boyce; he had been hired to kill Anne by Jack after their divorce yet Boyce got the wrong house and killed the Ward family instead. After being shot, Peter's wife had tried to shoot Boyce with a gun he had left on the ground while he was fighting with Peter. Instead, she hit Peter in the head, which explains the absence of any recollection of the events. Both Peter and Anne are knocked unconscious and taken to the basement where Anne is tied up. Jack shoots Boyce for his failure in the previous mission and goes on to light the house on fire with gasoline. Meanwhile, the projection of Peter's wife is hovering at the edges of the scene and urges Peter to wake up. When he does, he carries Anne out of the fire where she is reconciled with her daughter. Boyce, not quite dead, traps Jack in the fire by pouring gasoline on him before dying himself. Peter rushes back into the burning house where he sees his wife and daughters for the last time and is finally forced to let them go. The movie ends showing Peter's book he has written about his experience -- he was writing a book at the beginning of the film in his fantasy world, but this time he is using his real name.
Cast
- Daniel Craig as Will Atenton / Peter Ward
- Rachel Weisz as Libby Atenton / Elizabeth Ward
- Naomi Watts as Ann Patterson
- Marton Csokas as Jack Patterson
- Claire Geare as Dee Dee Atenton / Katherine Ward
- Taylor Geare as Trish Atenton / Beatrice Ward
- Rachel G. Fox as Chloe Patterson
- Mark Wilson as Dennis Conklin
- Jonathan Potts as Tony Ferguson
- Lynne Griffin as Sadie
- Elias Koteas as Hooded Man / Boyce
- Gregory Smith as Artie
- Chris Owens as Tom Barrion
- Jane Alexander as Dr. Greeley
- Sarah Gadon as Cindi
- Marlee Otto as Zara
- Joe Pingue as Martin
- David Huband as Officer Nelson
- James Collins as Police Officer
Soundtrack
The critically acclaimed score to Dream House was composed by John Debney and conducted by Robert Ziegler. Christian Clemmensen, reviewer of Filmtracks.com, gave it four out of five stars, declaring it "among the biggest surprises of 2011" and stating, "It's not clear how badly Debney's work for Dream House was butchered by the studio's frantic last minute attempts to make the film presentable, but Debney's contribution does feature a cohesive flow of development that is, at least on album, a worthy souvenir from this otherwise messy situation."[7] The soundtrack was released 11 October 2011 and features fifteen tracks of score at a running time of fifty-six minutes.
- "Dream House" (5:36)
- "Little Girls Die" (2:53)
- "Footprints in the Snow" (3:17)
- "Peter Searches" (6:00)
- "Night Fever" (1:33)
- "Intruders" (1:41)
- "Libby Sees Graffiti" (2:33)
- "Peter Ward's Room" (2:10)
- "Ghostly Playthings" (3:17)
- "Peter Ward's Story" (3:13)
- "Ghost House" (2:37)
- "Remember Libby" (4:05)
- "Murder Flashback" (3:59)
- "Peter Saves Ann/Redemption" (7:29)
- "Dream House End Credits" (5:55)
