House at the End of the Street (2012) or, The Dull House

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A scarcely dressed co-star Jennifer Lawrence looks caught in a dire situation on this poster for Mark Tonderai's House at the End of the Street

A single mother and her teenage daughter moves into a house. But in the neighboring house, in which a sweet college boy now lives alone, the boy's brain-damaged sister killed their parents. - Or did she?

House at the End of the Street is written by David Loucka (The Dream Team (1989)), with Jonathan Mostow (Breakdown (1997)) contributing story elements, and directed by Mark Tonderai (Hush (2008)).

Elisabeth Shue (Heart and Souls (1993)) seems despondent, and Jennifer Lawrence (Joy (2015)) as the (as usual) very mature high school protagonist actually gives an honest performance, which nevertheless can't salvage the film. In fact perhaps a really bad performance from her might have made it a bit of fun at least. Max Thieriot (My Soul to Take (2010)) is sweet to look at but fatally unbelievable as the standard issue psychopath villain, - whom Lawrence falls in love with.

House at the End of the Street is an awful mess of teen-drama romance and delayed, hopeless horror. Whether it makes any sense is hard to determine, because it is so lethally dull.

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 10 mil. $

Box office: 44.2 mil. $ 

= Big hit (returned 4.42 times its cost)

[House at the End of the Street was released 21 September (North America, UK and Ireland) and runs 101 minutes. Shooting took place from August - September 2010 in Ontario. The release was reportedly delayed to cash in on Lawrence's growing fame, - a strategy that paid off: The film opened #2, behind End of Watch, to a 12.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent one more weekend in the top 5 (#5) and grossed 31.6 mil. $ (71.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 3.8 mil. $ (8.6 %) and Germany with 1.4 mil. $ (3.2 %). Tonderai returned with 18 TV credits prior to his theatrical return with Spell (2020). Lawrence returned in The Devil You Know (2013); Thieriot in Dark Horse (2012, TV movie), Texas Rising (2015, miniseries) and theatrically in Point Break (2015). House at the End of the Street is rotten at 12 % with a 3.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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