5/21/11

Be It Ever So Convoluted : HOUSE

Directed by Robby Henson, 2008's House  is a great big mess of a movie that will either win the viewer over despite it's numerous flaws, or leave them hurling the DVD into a garbage can.

A young couple are driving the back-roads of Alabama when they have a blow out and are left stranded.  

With no mobile phone signal available (of course) , they traipse through the woods until they come upon a big spooky house (cue the thunder and lightning).  Once inside, they meet another stranded couple, as well as the creepy caretakers of the old dark house (Leslie Easterbrook - who is quickly becoming this generation's Shelly WintersBill Mosley - whose charms I have yet to fully understand; and Lew Temple play a lite version of The Firefly family, or maybe the Texas Chainsaw clan - you'll have them pinned as weirdos within a heartbeat).


But an old dark house, and a somewhat sinister family is just the start!  We've also got a masked killer, a little ghost girl (who sort of looks like Samara from The Ring, but has a much better temper), portals to different places of existence, and a Satanic cult! 


While it would be easy to tear this film apart, I found myself enjoying it.  Despite the Rob Zombie-like-vibe the film maker was going for, House feels much more like something that might have come out before we all became jaded - in fact it even has a happy ending (but not without a rather predictable twist tacked on).


This is a popcorn movie, kids.  Turn it on, turn your brain off, and sit back and enjoy yourself.

2 comments:

Francis Clay Hornik said...

What surprised me when I saw the movie was getting mainstream release was the fact that it was written by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, the Stephen King and Dean Koontz of the Left Behind crowd.

Pax Romano said...

Clay,

I am not familiar with these authors, but I've heard similar things.

House had something of a spiritual vibe to it, but it was not anything overt ... if anything, it seemed to want to be another "Devil's Rejects" but without the gore.

Again, it was not great, but I sort of enjoyed it.