The House of the Devil (2009) Reviews

• any second now i'll be blown away... maybe not

  RickHarvey2010-06-13

  Well then, what do we have here? A modern horror film placed in the 70/80s era. I already like Ti West thinking. With most Horror films today being god damn awful, it refreshing to see one which pays homage to the classics while trying to be unique. From start to finish, the film is littered with classic horror references. The opening titles design, the babysitter, Satanism. Even some parts of the music score is identical to the famous Halloween score. Now then, this film is very slow. It takes it time to build up, in fact, it takes the main character 30 minutes to reach the house. Thank god then that Samatha was likable. Now, it doesn't matter how slow a film starts, i mean the shining is regarded as slow but there one big contrast between the film's build up. One goes somewhere the other doesn't . Once we finally get to the house, we do nothing more than watch Samatha stroll around for the rest of the film. West atmosphere is perfect, his camera work was great, the suspension was brilliant but nothing ever came from these very few moments. The suspense just keeps building , West keeps on adding more fuel onto the fire until finally he runs out and the credits starts rolling . Very little happens and when we do reach the final act, it ends up being boring and forgettable. This film looks great but sadly , the script is poor leaving a potential film into a easily forgettable one. If you particularly enjoy watching people do nothing for a hour and 10 minutes, then this is highly recommended

• suspenseful buildup, less satisfying resolution

  Buddy-512011-04-22

  In "The House of the Devil," a young co-ed (Jocelin Donahue), hard-up for money to pay the rent on her new place off campus, answers an ad for a babysitting job way out in the boonies, only to be plunged headlong into a bizarre devil-worshipping cult in search of a sacrificial victim. Set in the 1980s - in a time before cell phones gave us at least the illusion of connectedness and security - this refreshingly unadorned and unembellished thriller does something rather unique with its structure (possibly a necessity brought on by its extremely low budget). The story comes to such a slow boil that the stretched-out tension becomes almost unbearable, thereby enhancing the atmosphere of dread. Unfortunately, die-hard slasher movie fans may be disappointed by the rather rushed, truncated and anticlimactic nature of the final scenes, in which our heroine finds herself being held captive by some of the most feckless and least competent kidnappers in horror movie history. Still, the suspenseful buildup is more than compensation for the half-baked and halfhearted resolution that follows.

• Like a Lost Horror Classic from 1982

  Llakor2009-07-27

  If the producers of this film were smart, they would deny that Ti West wrote and directed this film and claim that it was a lost film of the early eighties that they found in a drawer at Paramount. Say a lost Tobe Hooper film that Tobe did right before doing Poltergeist. Something that Steven Spielberg bought to keep from competing with Poltergeist and shoved in a drawer somewhere. Because it's that good. The House of the Devil feels like it should have been released back in 1982, from the feathered hair of the leads, to the Walkman, to the music and sound, to the slow build of the suspense, to the vintage titles. It is even a mash-up of the late seventies obsessions with baby-sitters in peril (When a Stranger Calls) and satanism in the suburbs (The Omen). Most importantly, it has all the slow-burn intensity of the great horror films of that period. The baby-sitter in peril is Samantha (Jocelin Donahue). A college student, she is doing baby-sitting gigs because she needs money for a new apartment and desperately wants to get out of her dorm. Her roommate is a sex-addict and a slob and Samantha as a neat-freak germaphobe finds both behaviours repulsive. The job that Samantha ends up taking, on the night of a full lunar eclipse, is obviously (cue Admiral Ackbar) a trap, more obvious to the audience than to Samantha because we know that the name of the film is The House of the Devil, because her employer is Tom Noonan, the original Red Dragon from Michael Mann's Manhunter and because Samantha is too self-absorbed to notice that she is in danger. There is a danger to read too much into it, but there is a very real sense that this film is pitched perfectly at the divide between the sex and drugs disco party lifestyle of the Seventies and the money-obsessed, self-absorbed Eighties. There is even a sense in which the film (with the benefit of filmmaker hindsight) acts as a horror metaphor explaining how the drugs and sex excesses of the Seventies led to the health catastrophes of the Eighties, especially AIDS. Samantha may not know exactly why she is a germaphobe, nor why she is so freaked out by the house she is sitting at, but her anxieties are well-placed. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? -William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

• Snorefest followed by a Borefest

  rsu6sic62010-01-18

  Before watching this movie I looked at some ratings for it and it it had a decent rating on IMDb so I figured I'd watch it. I started watching this movie late at night in hopes of giving myself a scare. Unfortunately, basically nothing happens in 70 minutes of the film. It took me 3 days to finish this snore fest of a movie. The first night was because I was tired and only got through 15 minutes, the second night I could only watch up to the 70 minute mark until I said to myself, "If nothing happens within the next 2 minutes I gotta stop watching this." Nothing happened so I went to sleep. With only about 25 minutes left in the movie, I watched it the following day. I had to wait 5 more minutes before anything actually picked up in the movie. That gave me about 20 minutes left. Luckily the snore fest upgraded itself to a bore fest. The babysitter finds a tub filled with hair, Oh so scary, then she passes out from the poison pizza she ate, Oh what a twist. Now she is tied up for a Satanic ritual, the owners of the house are all back and ready to sacrifice her. Somehow she escapes, beats people up, runs outside, blows her head off to save the human race and her soul the end. Oh whats this? A shot of a hospital? She's alive with her head bandaged up? How did she get there? How did she live a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head, how did the family explain the situation to paramedics? What a well thought out twist ending. Best ending ever.

• Good, but uneven, throwback to 80's religious horror

  LoneWolfAndCub2012-04-08

  Ti West, who directed the underrated Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, is a name to watch out for. The House of the Devil, although not fantastic, proves that West has an excellent eye for visuals, details and creating suspense. This film feels as though it has come directly out of the 80's, more like a lost film of some horror director like John Carpenter or Tobe Hooper than a second feature by a new millennium director. From the opening and end credits, to the walkman, fashion, soundtrack and the slightly faded visuals, even the storyline, centred on babysitters and Satanists feels like the movie belongs back in the 80's. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is a college student who needs money fast. Her roommate is a disgusting slob, and Samantha is a neat-freak, lucky for her she has found an apartment, but needs money to pay the rent. She stumbles across a babysitter advert at the college and quickly applies. Soon enough she is meeting with Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan) and his odd wife Mrs. Ulman (Mary Woronov) on the night of the lunar eclipse. Straight away it is obvious to us, and Samantha's friend Megan (Greta Gerwig), that this job is a setup for some sinister goings down (hence the title 'The House of the Devil'). The first 40 minutes of this movie are excellent. Samantha is a character we can care about and a sense of dread permeates the proceedings. However, once the babysitting starts very little happens and the movie slows to a halt which ultimately destroys the fantastic mood setup. Events pick up at 75 minute mark, but with only 15 minutes left the final act is rushed with no time to generate any scares (apart from some nice gory deaths). The cast do an excellent job, the exchanges between Mr. Ulman and Samantha are deliciously creepy, and the house itself is reminiscent of the Amityville house. The actual story is quite good, nothing new or exciting but a simple little devil-themed yarn with a little twist. Unfortunately it is the pacing which is this film's undoing, and it is a shame because it really could have been an amazingly good film otherwise. 3½/5