Day 55: June 24th, 2010

The House Of The Devil




They got the 80's feel right.

Strapped for cash and needing to pay first and last months rent for a new place, Samantha sees an ad for a babysitter. She calls the place and takes the job. The house is in the middle of nowhere and the job isn't exactly what it seems.

When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was left scratching my head. Why does it look so old? Upon research I found out that they were going for that look. Not only did it take place in the 80's, but it was made to look like it was filmed in the 80's as well. Ti West does an excellent job of accomplishing this, the mood, the environment, the style of the film all scream 1980's horror.

This is my second Ti West film, the first being the horrible and clunky Cabin Fever 2. It's so bad that even he wants to distance himself from it. So going into The house of the devil, I had mediocre expectations. First of all, 80's horror has it's ups and downs. Sure the film can get the feel right, but will I like it? It takes the classic tale of a babysitter in trouble. Most of the film is unnerving and long set ups to the climax.

Those long and suspenseful set ups are what drive the film. We are in this house with Samantha and we know that the end result will not be good for her. We are eagerly awaiting something bad to happen to her the entire time, but West takes his time in building the tension. This works extremely well, but it doesn't pay off for the climax. I felt that the climax wasn't sufficient enough for all the anticipation we had.

Everyone does a good job filling their roles, Jocelin Donahue is great as Samantha and the real stand out here is Tom Noonan as Mr. Ulman, the one who hires her. His mannerisms and calm way of speaking send chills down your spine. How someone so calm, polite and relatively normal looking can be so horrific. It's no spoilers that the house she goes into is going to cause trouble and we know he is behind it, otherwise there would be no film. Her best friend Megan is played by Greta Gerwig and she has the most surprising scene in the whole film, probably my favourite scene.

The house of the devil is a throwback horror film. it's for those people who grew up watching horror in the 80's and want to relive that experience. Those expecting some horrifying grotesque things may be disappointed.

7/10