The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil (2009) 02/13/2010

The 1980's were a golden age for horror movies, and many filmmakers today try to recapture that magic in their own films. Director Ti West's film "The House of the Devil" is yet another example, and for the most part succeeds in his efforts. Making a period horror film for under a million dollars is in itself a great accomplishment. This movie is not without its flaws though.

The movie centers on Samantha, played quite well by Jocelin Donahue. She is a college sophomore looking to move into her own apartment and get away from the dorms and her inconsiderate roommate. Her best friend is Megan, complete with 80's hair and attitude. Samantha replies to an ad for a babysitter and sets up to meet the man on the phone, but he stands her up. Being that there are no cell phones we get to see long lost items like pay phones and rotary phones, ahh that brings me back. The man calls Samantha the next day to apologize and to offer her more money. Megan drives her over to the house and they meet a tall older man with a cane. He comes clean that its not you average babysitting job and ups her pay. She accepts $400 for a few hours of work.

As you might have guessed the movie is called "The House of the Devil" for a reason. Instead of babysitting a child, Samantha's job is to watch over "mother" who is in a second floor room. A great deal of the movie involves Samantha roaming the house and checking things out. Like most babysitters she's bored has some time to waste. She calls Megan a few times but she has yet to return home. We see that Megan's fate is one of films best and surprising horror scenes. This film has angered a lot of casual horror fans in the fact that there is not a lot that really happens. It's a very slow burn type of story and very atmospheric. This makes the last fifteen minutes of the film that more intense. That family has something horrific in store for Samantha when they return. My biggest gripe with the film is the completely illogical final minutes. Maybe that has something to do with the 80's time period but its just like, really?

All in all this film is made for a very specific audience and not many people will ever see it, but for director Ti West this is another stepping stone in what looks to be a growing career. He has most recently finished making Cabin Fever 2 and will be filming "The Innkeepers" soon. For horror fans he is definitely a talent to keep your eye on.

Fmovies: The House of the Devil is a fastidiously detailed, pitch-perfect homage to 80's horror, that adheres to genre conventions while at the same time transcending them. Director Ti West understands what makes horror films work, that the horror is always more exciting when you don't know when to expect it. Jocelin Donahue plays Samantha, typical college-girl hoping to get a place of her own but without the cash to do so. She accepts a babysitting job that promises to pay well, and is then left in a creepy house in the middle of nowhere. Borrowing a page from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and others) playbook, the been there, done that story is absolutely the point, complete with opening statistics promising a true story. Horror doesn't need to be complicated, just well executed. West builds dread and terror like a pro, understanding the classic Hitchcock sensibility that people fear what they don't see, and what they don't know (Lovecraft said so as well). In the face of torture porn and slasher flicks, where the only horror is the gore and the murder (and unnecessary soundtrack spikes), it is quite unsettling to be subjected to a thrill ride like this one.

I heard some good things about this film before viewing, and then on this site heard some bad things. I've come to believe that listening to others doesn't always help. It's all about opinion and experience, and in my opinion, this experience was worth it.

I won't get into too many details of the plot as the reviews and trailers tell it straight forward, but as far as tension, cinematography, atmosphere, music and style goes, this film really has it all. It's a classic story of your ordinary girl next door being put into an extraordinary situation. It's a situation that she tries to avoid, the people around her try to avoid, and you as a viewer knows she should avoid but can't help and stay to see what transpires.

If you're looking for a run of the mill slasher flick, a psychological thriller, or an action packed gore fest, I'm sorry but this isn't for you. However, if you're into the types of horror movies that take a simple, almost predictable concept and turns it on its' head in an unrelenting fashion, then look no further. This movie will stay with you for a few days for different reasons, but my biggest turn on was the feeling throughout the film, an homage to earlier times, and an evil that knows no bounds.

The House of the Devil fmovies. House of the Devil is a film that delves the audience into an atmosphere of a classical slasher film. The scenery and style of the misc-en-scene throughout the film heavily mirrors that of the ideal 80s slasher such as Halloween. The scenery in the film is one of its defining characteristics that help this movie stand out from other modern day horror films that rely heavily on special effects.

The overall best aspect of this film is its growing suspense. This is not a movie for those who love gore and constant assault on the senses. For the grand majority of the movie the audience held down by so much expectation it becomes almost unbearable. The audience grows attached to the very attractive main character (Jocelin Donahue) who despite her and her friend's best efforts to be sensible throughout the film falls victim to classic horror movie stereotypes. This attraction and connection to the main character as the suspense continues to build at a grueling pace make this part of the film truly great.

The excellent use of growing suspense throughout the film is also its biggest downfall as the audience is filled to the brim with expectation only to have that feeling shattered by a very rushed ending. The ending assaults your senses too fast and is too unbelievable. The audience becomes disconnected as the realistic suspense of the majority of the film at this grueling pace is replaced by an unrealistic ending that happens all too fast.

Another positive aspect of this film that should be mentioned is the comic relief of the best friend (Greta Gerwig) delivering excellent amount of fun in the face of this growing suspense.

Overall the majority of this film has all the aspects of a classical slasher of growing suspense. However, the pacing at the end and the disconnect from this suspenseful first half of the film served as a large disappointment.

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

I find it impossible to give this movie less than a seven, because, even if the ending was absolutely a letdown, the first 80% of the movie was so excellently constructed that its cinematic value cannot be lessened too greatly.

And excellent The House of the Devil is for most of its duration. Director/Writer/Editor Ti West shows a remarkable proficiency for being able to truly scare, through an excellent slow-burn build-up, allowing the atmosphere of the titular house and the anticipation for when it is inevitably released to bring a viewer to nail-biting fear, rather than simply trying to startle with constant Boo! Got'cha! "scares," or excessive gore. In the end, this method is far more effective and lasting, less artificial than the latter methods which seem to, unfortunately, be the bread and butter of modern American horror filmmakers.

However, when the denouement rolls around, this is completely thrown out the window. Sure, the gore may look nice (and indeed it does; not top of the line, but it belies the film's budget), but it completely abandons House's almost regal sense of restraint that worked so effectively for nearly the entire length of the movie. Not to mention, the transition in styles is itself so jarring that I was pulled from the experience for nearly 10 minutes, an unfortunate occurrence when that covers almost the entire duration of the remainder. The release of the built up fear was clumsy and ineffective, and the effect of the movie after the credits rolled was erased. I wasn't left with the feeling that something could be lurking just out of sight over my shoulder that the best horror movies provide; a tension that extends beyond the movie's run-time. This problem I believe to later be solved by Ti West's later film "The Innkeepers," a picture I believe (and seemingly in the minority) to be the superior movie.

However, despite its eventual letdown, the remainder of House of the Devil was truly a horror experience I rarely see from recent American horror films, this difference between House of the Devil and its peers thrown into sharp relief by the clearly nostalgic feel it gives off, even from the opening credits. Even the grainy camera shots add a sense of, for lack of a better word, enjoyable "retro" style, rather than becoming a detriment. And the camera work itself is also exemplary, snaking and twisting its way among the oppressive halls of the house that seems more an antique than something to be lived in.

The House of the Devil is unquestionably a good movie. For most of the film, I was completely drawn in, waiting with a rising anticipation to see what was lurking around the corner; The House of the Devil is truly scary even with its superficial sense of the mundane. Nothing is shown, save for one particularly haunting shot of what lies behind a door that remains (at least temporarily) unopened, and it is all the better for that. But this is before (please excuse the pun) everything goes to Hell at the climax. I'd certainly recommend this film; just don't expect the release to be able to come close to matching the rising action.