 |
| An effective, spine-tingling poster that includes the pretty awesome tagline for Ti West's The House of the Devil |
A college student desperate for some money takes a babysitting job one night in a house in the country, where she is to sit for an old woman, whom she never sees, while the aging couple who employ her assign themselves to a lunar eclipse.
Four racing, big hearts go out to this retro-styled horror from writer-director Ti West (The Innkeepers (2011)). SPOILER Greta Gerwig (You Wont Miss Me (2009)) gets brutally murdered early on, (around 30 minutes into the film, echoing the iconic Janet Leigh death of Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic Psycho (1960)), which establishes an 'anything-can-happen' type of anxiety. This works terrifically for the following 45 minutes of the film, which follow a less-is-more approach to horror and achieve a high general scare level. West also treats us to around 100 camera zooms and other neat stylistic and musical references to the 1980s, which the film is set in; the horror films of the 1970s and 1980s are paid satisfying homage to in this way. Also note the stand-out poster works for the film, which also smell wonderfully of a bygone cinematic era.
SPOILER When The House of the Devil 'goes nuts' in blinking lights, blood and ritualized violence, the fright quickly leaks from it. It suddenly seems to adopt a believe in more-is-more at this late point towards its end, and it comes across a bit like the common script issue of tying up a satisfying end in the third act. Leading up to this, though, The House of the Devil is a damned scary companion.
Related post:
Ti West: V/H/S (2012) - Energetic, periodically intensely creepy if flawed found footage horror anthology (segment writer-director)
Watch the great opening credit sequence from the film here
Cost: 0.9 mil. $
Box office: 101k $ - North America only
= Mega-flop
[The House of the Devil premiered 25 April (New York's Tribeca Film Festival) and runs 95 minutes. Shooting took place in March 2008 in Connecticut on 16mm film. The film opened #58 in 3 theaters to a 25k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked in 7 theaters and never attained a higher position and grossed 101k $. In foreign markets, it almost only played at festivals, and its gross from these ventures are unlisted. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, equal to the rating it gets here. The film was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Despite the disappointing theatrical run, West was employed on other projects immediately after, and it is likely that the film has made a tidy sum through TV, VoD and home video. The House of the Devil is certified fresh at 86 % with a 7.1/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The House of the Devil?
No comments:
Post a Comment