Mrs. Winthrop is determined to get rid of her home. It is an old, Southern Tennessee beaut of a home filled with original wood stairs and rails, original furniture from when it was built way-back-when, filled with old family belongings that to the Music City Salvage team will be worth a fortune. After the patriarch of the family-run business purchases the home he sends in his team to gather the scrap: daughter Dahlia, drunk nephew Bobby, Bobby’s son Gabe, and unrelated worker Brad. They show up to the house and wouldn’t you know, it’s haunted. Cue Southern Gothic haunted house story: there’s an old house, there’s a storm, there are ghosts. Spooky.
Ultimately, I didn’t care about any of these people. None of them were interesting and none were really written to be sympathetic. I think we’re supposed to ache for Dahlia and her recent divorce, but we never get any real insight to how she is overall to make that connection. I think we’re supposed to root for Gabe because he’s nice. Bobby is clearly the antagonist because he drinks a lot, but that’s it. He just drinks a lot.
Sort of. The ghosts in this story have no teeth. They’re minimally there. The skirt the vision of the salvage team in dark corners and far off parts of the land the house is on. The one ghost that is malevolent (at least, we’re supposed to believe this spirit is malevolent) just makes people feel weird and spooked? The spirit chases a person or two down a hallway, but that’s it. I’ve read children’s ghost stories that were scarier.
