Dana (Beckinsale) is an architect who moves to an old house with her husband David (Mel Raido) and her son Lucas (Duncan Joiner) in an attempt to restart their lives after the death of her baby daughter. However, she starts hearing strange noises in the attic, which leads her to discover an old locked room.
The Disappointments Room provides examples of:
- Haunted House: The house is haunted by a judge and his deformed daughter, who he killed.
- Interrupted Suicide: A flashback shows that Dana attempted to slit her wrists after the death of her daughter, but David showed up in time to stop her.
- I See Dead People: Dana is the only one who can see the ghosts in the house, which leads David to believe she's going insane.
- Karmic Death: The judge used a hammer to bash in the skull of his deformed daughter. Dana returns the favor when he tries to smother her son. Though, being a ghost, this doesn't necessarily kill him.
- Lazy Bum: David. At one point, he says that he plays Xbox and takes naps while he watches Dana work, when he's asked what he does for a living. That said, he does actually have a job in the city, though it's not clear what he does.
- Mama Bear: Dana bashes the judge's skull in for threatening her son. To David, it just looks like she's swinging a hammer into her son's bed while he's still in it.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The end of the film leaves it ambiguous whether the ghosts are real or if Dana is merely hallucinating from not taking her medication, though the little porcelain figurine that belonged to the daughter hints at the former.
- Mundane Solution: The family simply moves away from the house at the end of the film.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The titular room is played up in the film's marketing. However, it barely appears in the movie, and a lot of the movie's events have very little to do with it.
- Offing the Offspring: The judge killed his own deformed daughter, as seen in one of Dana's visions.
- Outliving One's Offspring: Dana's daughter suffocated because she fell asleep while holding her, smothering her.
- Sanity Slippage: Dana suffers this once the room is unlocked, thanks to the ghost of the judge (maybe).
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: In the poster for the film (above). She never appears in the film.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Most of the film is from Dana's perspective, which ties in to the twist where the viewer is left to question if any of the strange things she saw were real.
- Vorpal Pillow: The judge tries to do this to Lucas, but Dana shows up in time to stop him.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Ben disappears from the film after his seemingly fake hanging, leaving his fate up in the air.
- Would Hurt a Child: The judge killed his own deformed daughter, whacks Ben with a shovel and hangs him, and tries to kill Lucas as well. Those last two may or may not have actually happened.
