The Skeptic (also known as: The Haunting of Bryan Becket) is a 2009 American suspense thriller film written and directed by Tennyson Bardwell.

Starring Tim Daly, Zoe Saldana, and Tom Arnold, and featuring Robert Prosky (in his final film appearance) and Edward Herrmann, it depicts the story of an attorney who inherits a seemingly haunted house, though he does not believe in the supernatural.

A police officer responds to a 911 call that came from a large home, upon his investigation he comes across an old woman who had apparently died of fright, holding a set of rosary beads.

Bryan Beckett (Tim Daly) is an overly analytical lawyer, whose lack of true emotion has caused a rift in his marriage.

His friend and partner at the law firm Sully (Tom Arnold) has a seizure when they visit the home and warns Bryan not to enter the closet behind the cross.

Shepard confirms this, and allows Bryan to remember that as a five-year-old, due to the harsh treatment by his mother, he consciously placed toys on the stairs, causing her to fall down them to her death.

As his mother touches his face, he receives a vision of the picnic he had missed on the day before her death, when she had locked him in the closet for leaving a sock on the floor when he cleaned his room.

Shooting began in 2005, with eight weeks spent filming in various locations around the Saratoga Springs, New York area – including the city Court House, the Olde Bryan Inn, the Union Gables Bed and Breakfast as well as Union College in nearby Schenectady,[2][3][4] The Batcheller Mansion Inn was used for the three-story Victorian mansion where much of the film takes place.

Intended to concentrate on the psychological rather than gore, the film has no "blood and guts" and instead requires viewers to be skeptical and open to the different possible interpretations of the ending.