Critic Reviews

For the rest of us who aren't above settling in for a well-wrought ghost story, who allow ourselves the guilty pleasure of a roiling melodrama, Stephen King's 'Rose Red' is inconsequential fun.

But he has created a creepy tale that anyone who enjoys being scared — without being totally grossed out — will enjoy.

It won't add snap to anyone's synapses. It's a dumbly, numbly entertaining pastiche about a bad house.

This one may be only for Stephen King’s most fanatical followers.

Sure, there are some bona fide jolts and creepy moments but overall in "Rose Red" there's a small smattering of surprise. [25 Jan 2002]

It's not enough to justify a six-hour investment, but the climactic special effects at least are first-rate and fun to watch. "Rose Red" otherwise is just too hilarious at times. Not entirely horrid, it's way short on horror. For shame, Stephen King. Larry King is sometimes scarier than this. [27 Jan 2002]

The bad news is that in true King fashion the mini series is about three hours longer than it needs to be. Somebody throw King to a newspaper editor. They decapitate copy at will! (Now that’s real horror.)

"Rose Red delivers a better story than his last opus (1999's "Storm of the Century") with better developed characters, but at the end I still felt like I'd wasted a lot of time. What's the point in setting up an intriguing, intricate backstory without offering some answers?

Plays like a motley medley of the grand exalted ghost buster's greatest hits. It's a fright night festival of tepid chills and only moderate thrills, a haunted house miniseries that drags on for three nights. [27 Jan 2002, p.1F]

Two nights might have worked better for this series, but if noises at night make you jump, "Stephen King's Rose Red" will give you a decent dose of the heebie-jeebies. [27 Jan 2002]