All I Want

The image of the gloomy Victorian mansion--usually abandoned--with a murky history, located in a remote area, immediately creates a feeling of foreboding. It certainly isn't the place to call home. But Emma and Ben put aside any misgivings--ignoring their many viewings of The Shining--when they fall in love with a dilapidated Victorian in Darcey Bell's chilling All I Want.

Pregnant artist Emma is apprehensive when her husband, Ben, a rising Broadway producer, says he's fallen in love with a mansion located in a dying community in upstate New York. Sure, it's been vacant for years, needs a major overhaul and was once a mental hospital for actors. As aficionados of films such as The Amityville Horror, they should run. But the home is gorgeous, has a complete in-house theater and might be a good place to raise a family. Tensions between Ben and Emma begin even before they move in, accelerating when Ben spends more time in New York City to work on a new musical production, leaving Emma to deal with renovations. Using shifting points of view, Bell ramps up the tension as Emma sees phantom people, a former patient's diary disappears and an eerie presence hovers in the house. Yet, Emma begins to feel "an almost physical craving" for the house.

Bell (A Simple Favor) makes several familiar tropes, such as a woman alone and an overly involved handyman, seem fresh and even more frightening with shades of Rosemary's Baby, as All I Want builds to a solid finale. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer 

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