Dr Joyce Reardon, a lecturer at Beaumont University in Seattle, decides to mount an investigation into an old, haunted house known as Rose Red, before the property is demolished. Built by oil tycoon John R Rimbauer as a wedding present to his wife, Ellen, in 1907, it has been at the centre of at least twenty-three disappearances, but is currently thought to be dormant.

With the assistance of a group of hand-picked psychics, whose various skills include precognition, automatic writing and psychometry, she hopes to prove the existence of the paranormal. The key to her investigation is Annie Wheaton, an autistic teenager with some unusual abilities, who she hopes will be able to awaken the house.

Produced three years after Storm of the Century - ABC's previous Stephen King mini-series - Rose Red was an attempt to make a modern version of the haunted house story. In interviews King has revealed that the idea was originally conceived as a movie project in conjunction with Steven Spielberg, but it had been abandoned after it became apparent that the two men had differing ideas of the direction the project should take.

Filmed in Washington State, with the Thornewood Castle bed and breakfast inn being used as the location for Rose Red itself, the mini-series went into production during the Autumn of 2001, with over $500, 000 of the $30m budget being spent on restoring Thornewood Castle alone. Tragedy struck the production in the October, however, when David Dukes, who was playing Joyce Reardon's sceptical colleague Carl Miller, collapsed and died - the mini-series was subsequently dedicated to his memory.

Unfortunately, for a six-hour mini-series about a haunted house, Rose Red suffered by being at least an episode too long. Unbelievably, the setting up of the investigation and explaining the background of the house took up the entire first episode, with the group of psychics only arriving at Rose Red right at the very end. The location itself looks suitably creepy, and the effects, in places, were excellent, but the production was badly let down by some lacklustre performances and a pace that would try the patience of even the biggest Stephen King fan.

A documentary titled Unlocking Rose Red was broadcast in the week before the full mini-series, and this was basically a look at the house and its history as if the story was true. It has since been released on the Rose Red DVD, which has been issued in both the USA and UK.

In the UK, Rose Red has been shown on Sky One between June 29th and July 13th 2003 with numerous other screenings on the premium movie channels in a two-part version. The Unlocking Rose Red documentary was shown on Sky One on 21st June, the week before the first episode was transmitted.

Text © Kieran Seymour, 2004.

Characters	Portrayed By
Joyce Reardon	Nancy Travis
Steven Rimbauer	Matt Keeslar
Annie Wheaton	Kimberley J Brown
Professor Carl Miller	David Dukes
Cathy Kramer	Judith Ivey
Rachel Wheaton	Melanie Lynskey
Emery Waterman	Matt Ross
Nick Hardaway	Julian Sands
Victor Kandinsky	Kevin Tighe
Ellen Rimbauer	Julia Campbell
Pam Asbury	Emily Deschanel
Mrs Kay Waterman	Laura Kenny
Sukeena	Tsidii Leloka
Actress Deanna Petrie	Yvonne Scio
Kevin Bollinger	Jimmi Simpson
George Wheaton	Robert Blanche