Will Atenton, a successful editor for a New York Citypublishing house, quits his job to focus on writing a book while spending more time with his wife Libby and their young daughters, Trish and Dee Dee. The family is initially happy to live in their Fairfield County "dream house" near the forest. Soon, however, they grow uneasy because of a series of unsettling events, including their daughters seeing a strange man lurking outside and teenagers gathering in the basement. It all seems to tie to a crime committed in the house five years earlier, when a man named Peter Ward apparently murdered his wife and two kids and was committed to a mental hospital from which he has been recently released due to lack of evidence. Will tries to enlist the help of the local police, but they appear strangely unwilling to assist. He also approaches his neighbor Ann, who seems apprehensive, while her estranged husband Jack appears outright hostile to Will. Will decides to conduct his own investigations, visiting the facility where Peter Ward was housed, and in doing so he finds out that he actually is Peter Ward. Five years earlier, during the attack that claimed the lives of his wife and daughters, Peter was shot in the head, so he has no memories of the murders. In order to cope with the grief, he fabricated a delusion in which his family is still alive and a new identity for himself based on his inpatient ID band "W1-1L 8-10-10". Once dismissed, Peter moved back to his abandoned house, which is now condemned and covered in graffiti, but in Peter's disturbed mind, it's still unspoiled and inhabited by Libby and the girls. Peter is forcibly removed from the dilapidated house and is taken in by Ann, who believes in his innocence and used to visit him at the facility. She encourages Peter to move on, but Peter eventually returns to the house to confront his memories, ultimately realizing that he did not kill his wife and kids. It was a local man named Boyce, who broke into the house and shot Peter's family, while Libby, trying to subdue the intruder, shot Peter inadvertently. Peter and Ann are suddenly attacked by Jack, who reveals that he had hired Boyce to kill Ann so he could get revenge against her for divorcing him, as well as full custody of their daughter, Chloe. However, Boyce went to the wrong house and accidentally killed Peter's family instead. Still helped by Boyce, Jack decides to kill Ann and set the house on fire, framing Peter for her murder. He also shoots Boyce as punishment for his early failure. As Jack ignites a fire, Peter overpowers Jack and saves Ann with the help of his wife Libby who is revealed to be a spirit and not a mental projection. A wounded Boyce douses Jack in gasoline, but Jack shoots him in the head and tries to escape through the flames. Since he is covered in gasoline, he catches on fire, and burns to death. While Ann and Chloe reunite, Peter says goodbye to the spirits of his wife and children. Some time later, Peter has returned to New York and published a best-selling book called Dream House, in which he recounts his tragic experiences.
Director Jim Sheridan reportedly clashed with Morgan Creek’s James G. Robinson constantly on the set over the shape of the script and production of the film. According to the Los Angeles Times, Sheridan tried to take his name off the film after being unhappy with it and his relationship with Morgan Creek Productions. Reportedly, Sheridan, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz disliked the final cut of the film. The trailer, cut by Morgan Creek Productions, was criticized for revealing the film's main plot twist.
Soundtrack
The 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." The soundtrack was released 11 October 2011 and features fifteen tracks of score at a running time of fifty-six minutes.
Reception
The film was not screened in advance for critics and was critically panned. On review aggregation Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 6% based on 86 reviews, with a rating average of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Dream House is punishingly slow, stuffy and way too obvious to be scary." Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating to reviews, gives the film a score of 35 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
