The House of The Devil

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Nov 162009

poster_house-of-the-devil I saw the poster* for House of the Devil about a month or so ago, and thought it was fantastic. It evoked that late 70s early 80s style perfectly. After looking up the synopsis of the film, I was extremely cautious. Getting a poster right is one thing, but if you can’t get the tone right in the film itself for the period it’s trying to emulate, it’s just all going to fall flat. I’ve had the chance to see it as it’s been on various Video On Demand services since October 1st but I chose to ignore it.

Last night while trying to cure boredom scrolling through the new Zune Video Marketplace on the Xbox 360, I came across House of the Devil again. I figured fuck it, at the very worst I’m just out 6 bucks. House of the Devil was purchased, which is actually the first out-of-theater style video rental I’ve ever done, pretty cool. After a few seconds of buffering all was good to go and I settled in to check out this rather well-reviewed, little throwback film.

House of the Devil calls itself a ‘satanic thriller’ and is the story of college sophomore Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) who accepts a really fucking weird babysitting gig in order to get some extra scratch. Samantha needs to come up with her first month’s rent in her new place, so she’s rather desperate and will overlook certain red flags. The first red flag being that Mr. and Mrs. Ullman (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov) who want her to ‘babysit’ don’t actually have a baby to sit for. It’s instead Mr. Ullman’s mother who needs to be cared for and he and the wife apparently just want to get the fuck out and check out the lunar eclipse, which would be the second red flag. Uh, creepy people want you to babysit grandma so they can check out a rare lunar eclipse?? Shit, that’d be enough for me to say no right there. The third and final giant red flag would be that they live in this huge Victorian mansion out in the middle of nowhere buried in the woods. Megan (Greta Gerwig) who is Sam’s best friend, is the voice of the audience and is pretty sure something is fucked up in this potential gig and urges Samantha not to do it. There’s also this dude named Victor (AJ Bowen) kind of roaming around the woods of the house and by the time the plot snaps into place, it’s pretty clear that something completely fucking evil is going down.

I miss the time when horror movies were obsessed with Satanism and cults and all of that shit. Director Ti West shows that no matter what you believe in, when done well satanic subject matter is disturbing and can produce some genuinely fucked up psychological results in the audience. House of the Devil is almost Hitchcockian in it’s suspense, and good God does it have a lot of that. The film burns so slowly and torques down the tension so much, it’s nearly unbearable at times. I’ll try my best to avoid any spoilers here, so I apologize in advance for the vague nature of my examples. Samantha’s scenes in the house where she’s hearing what is either upstairs, or downstairs are absolutely terrifying. The film excels in scaring the audience through anticipation and doesn’t rely on cheap tactics that we’ve all become accustomed to. While the film nails this aspect, it’s also not afraid to get a little, uh, messy. I’ll leave it at that as I wouldn’t dare spoil some of the most effective stuff in the movie. Without getting too detailed, shit hits the fan and Samantha needs to get the fuck out of that house because Satan is conducting a focus group meeting on his newest ‘Lunar Eclipse’ line of underwear. Chew on that.

Everything from the look of the film, to the music, to the hilarious wardrobe, and hairstyles is spot on. It’s not total grindhouse, so don’t expect any unnecessary film grain or hacksaw editing. Expect to see something that looks authentic while not going for the bag of tricks, it’s actually fairly pure in that regard. The cast is great, especially Tom Noonan as Mr. Ullman. He’s at home here in this character part and definitely succeeded in creeping me the fuck out a few times. Jocelin Donahue is cute as the main character, Samantha. She’s got the perfect face for this movie, it’s almost as if she was right out of this time period. That plain, not ugly but not gorgeous girl who ends up just completely mentally fucked in half. I loved her. AJ Bowan as Victor will leave you going “oh holy SHIT” in one part in particular, a scene which is actually sort of the opening salvo of gore.

If you are a horror fan and more importantly if you’re a fan of this style of horror film, then go ahead and drop your mouse and find a way to see this. If you can’t find it in a theater near you then check out different places that offer movie content on demand. As I mentioned earlier I found it on the Xbox Marketplace. If you’re not really a fan of older, slower horror movies like John Carpenter’s Halloween, then this probably isn’t for you. If you’re just too used to modern jump-scare schlock then you’ll be easily frustrated. That long slow burn pays itself off in the end though, I can assure you. House of the Devil is not the second coming of vintage horror, but it was definitely fun and I highly recommend it.

*Seriously, I’m hanging that fucker on my wall, I already ordered that shit online.