For all the posh trappings of Ye Olde Haunted House and a Guillermo del Toro script, the horror is hokum. Guy Pearce is too busy fixing up the mansion to notice that his daughter (Bailee Madison), traumatized by his divorce, is losing her mind. She is also terrorized by tiny, hunchbacked fiends from the basement. Katie Holmes cares, yet takes forever to get the girl out of the house. The manipulation of childish fear is ugly, the critters are merely nasty, and the story is as dimly simple as the title. (2011) — David Elliott