|
I have been hearing a lot about Ti West lately, and have heard many good things about House of the Devil. I know that West likes to shoot horror films in my home state of Connecticut, which always tickles me, so when I saw this chilling out in the Redbox, I thought it would be a good way to waste a night. Unfortunately, waste is the operative word here. While House of the Devil looks awesome, the story is 75 minutes of boredom leading up to 15 minutes of cliché. I know that is usually the closing argument in a review, but I figured that unlike the film I’d give it to you up front and not make you fucking work for it with no reward.
Let me clarify that bit about the film looking awesome: the photography is excellent and Ti West is a great director, but the transfer was terrible. I mean, I bought a Blu-Ray player to see sharper images, not an ass load of grain. The fact of the matter is, high def hates film. Digital video looks bananas, but anything shot on film needs to be massaged like a tense businessman to look good in high def. I know that the film was shot on 16 MM to give it more of an 80’s look, that being the decade it is ostensibly parroting, but that lead to a bad Blu-Ray experience for me. So right off the bat I was not enjoying myself.
|
I say ostensibly because even though the film is intended as a throwback to 80’s horror, it is set (according to the awesome Fixx song the main actress rocks out to, ala Violet in Friday the 13th Part 3) in 1983, close enough to the 70’s for the fashions and the hairdos to be interchangeable. It also lifts heavily from Suspiria both in terms of the look of lead actress Jocelin Donahue and the aspect ratio and overall cinematography. And later on (muuuuuch later on) when there is bloodshed, the blood is the same sort of day old Spaghetti Os color as in the Argento film.
|
CT is actually a good place to find creepy old houses
|
Okay. So we have a bad transfer and an ambiguous era. Setting that aside, the actual movie does not begin poorly. We get a little Dee Wallace (who has apparently dropped the Stone at some point) and that is never a bad thing. Young collegiate Samantha is attempting to rent an apartment from her, seeing as how Sam is currently saddled with a loudly promiscuous roommate. The two come to an agreement, and off Sam goes to figure out how to raise the money she needs to put down on the place…considering she had none. On the way back to her dorm she spies a flier for a couple seeking a babysitter, she calls them on a strange device called a pay phone, and off the movie goes. The man who answers the phone is creepy, there is a lunar eclipse happening that night, and a title card at the opening of the film tells us that there will be Satanist shenanigans at some point. What could possibly go wrong for Samantha?
After securing a ride from her feathered-haired friend, Megan, Sam heads out to the Ulman house to see what’s what. When she gets there she is greeted by Mr. Ulman and Mrs. Ulman, played with the expected gravitas by genre veterans Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov. They inform Sam that her babysitting will actually be for the Mrs.’s mom. Sam is not expected to do anything except hang out and order a pizza (did I mention the pizza?). It seems to good to be true, and Sam and Megan think so too, but after four hundred dollars is offered, Sam simply cannot say no. That is her entire down payment in one night.
|
What a great cinematic pairing
|
Let me stop and interject some things right now. By this point in the film I was getting over my initial poor reaction to the grainy image. As I stated before, West is a great director. The film looks good and is well shot, and the inclusion of some great older character actors didn’t hurt (later on the Ulman’s son comes into play, and he is essayed by AJ Bowen, who I loved in The Signal). Also, the big, old house was a familiar setting to me, having spent time in similar architecture here in CT. And finally, my mom was an Occultist in the 70’s and 80’s, so the Ulman’s were also the type of people I had been around. The whole mixture of elements was poised to start really creeping me out.
|
And then it all went to shit.
The fact of the matter is, Sam spends most of the rest of the film just sort of knocking around the house like a loose pinball. There is one moment (outside of the house and Sam’s view) that is shockingly violent, and one creepy image in the house (but also out of her view) but for the most part it’s just Sam, sort of getting the willies from the everyday stuff any of us might get the willies from. The occasional noise, power glitches, horror films on TV in a dark house you’re not familiar with. And that’s really about it. I guess what it boils down to is, if you buy into the slow pace of the film as a build up of tension, you’re golden. If you don’t, like me, you’re godawful bored.
|
So flash forward an hour or so, and finally the family returns and the Satanic shenanigans commence. Like I said, that point is telegraphed even before the title sequence, so I don’t think it’s a spoiler. The family returns, and what do you think they do with Sam? Well, I guess going further into that would constitute a spoiler, But suffice it to say it is exactly what you would expect to see in any movie about wingnut Satanists and a young coed. Not a damn surprising thing about it. Other than how wussy the family is. Sam seems to break free and kick ass on them pretty damn easily. She needs to break loose so there can be chases and fights and stuff, but she didn’t even have to work for it.
|
Really dude? For serious?
|
All in all, I was just terribly let down by everything in this film. But I know for a fact that other horror fans love it. So the end result is House of the Devil is a well shot film that needs you to be so enamored of the homage it makes to horror films of days gone by that you will not notice its shortcomings. If you are that person, then this is the film for you. I only wish that I was as well.
But my trashing of this film is no reason not to email me next time you’re making a movie in CT, though, Mr. West. Seriously, call me. We’ll have lunch or something.
|
