UNHINGED || Movie Review: The House of the Devil
When I first heard about the The House of the Devil, my heart skipped a beat. I thought, “This could be the movie! This could save horror from the Michael Bays of the world!” Naturally, I was excited. I found the earliest opportunity to go see this apparent salvation of the horror genre.
The House of the Devil is a throwback of sorts, or so they say. It’s an eighties period piece that relies on the format of those films, but only to a point. In fact, during the opening credits I was time-travelling back to my childhood. College sophomore Samantha wanders about in her puffy coat and high-waisted jeans with those old headphones attached to her walkman (yes, an actual walkman! How fun!) For just a moment, during the opening credits as the screen froze on arbitrary images of Samantha on her college campus, I thought, “Hey, are we watching a Tarantino film?” But no, we weren’t. We were watching an eighties horror movie. It just happened to be made in 2009.
Samantha is in need of money. She’s trying to escape her horrible dorm room, which she shares with a turbo slut who apparently does not know how to put anything in the hamper. She leaves socks on the door, and Samantha can never get into her own room to study, to sleep, to simply live. Because of this, she finds herself the perfect apartment. Dee Wallace (yay! Dee Wallace! World’s greatest werewolf!) likes her. She knows she’s a little broke, but she trusts her instincts and tells Samantha that she will waive the deposit for her if she brings the first month’s rent on Monday.
Samantha walks away ecstatic. But where will she get the money? Her best friend Megan offers to get money from her family for help, but as we all know, pride is the killer, and Samantha declines. She instead agrees to babysit for a family in the country that is more than a little on the creepy side. Megan drives her out into the middle of nowhere, and she accepts the babysitting gig-even though the family has lied to her about having a young child (they don’t) and offered to pay her way more than the gig is worth (four hundred eighties bucks). And yet, she doesn’t really catch the weirdness of this.
As soon as Mr. and Mrs. Ulman leave, Samantha begins her terrible evening torment. At first the events seem to be the normal groaning of an old house-noises in the attic and basement. And this is the stuff of super fun horror-viewing. For the first time since the actual eighties, I found this whole location-based terror scenario totally terrifying. I was legitimately creeped out on more than one occasion. I even found myself uttering “No! No! No!” a couple of times. It seemed to me that Samantha, bright young college student that she is, was one of the world’s less easily duped horror heroines.
Though, that’s not saying much.
This film has atmosphere. From the moment Samantha enters the house, there is a majorly creepy vibe that just doesn’t seem to fade. It’s one of the most tension-based films I have seen in years, and it totally succeeds in making the audience squirm in their chairs. The moments of physical violence that happen in the rising action of the film are actually very minimal, but their execution is utterly shocking. In fact, after someone was shot in the head with very little lead-in, I actually found myself turning to my buddy and saying “Well, that was fast.”
This sounds like a complaint. But it is exactly the opposite. Ti West does not pull any punches in his film, and he certainly doesn’t talk down to his audience. He counts on us knowing exactly where he’s headed, and as such, he doesn’t bother with any of those ridiculous preambles that audiences have become so disillusioned with. This is a film based on actual terror.
The House of the Devil taps into fears we’ve had for years. In fact, the film opens with a black screen and white text informing us of the percentage of people in the eighties in the United States who actually believed that extreme Satanic cults existed and committed frequent acts of super-evil. As such, it immediately connects to the notion of eighties excess. As my friend mentioned while we were waiting on the subway platform, “Great horror movies all come out of oppressive regimes.” And Reagan gave us such a regime. And so the eighties produced mountains of good horror (and mini-mountains of awful horror). And the film feels a lot like an eighties horror movie for the most part. (Let’s face it. Slashers are eighties. The Devil is late seventies. But okay. We can let this go.)
While the film keeps its focus tightly on the feeling of being alone in this strange house, it functions beautifully. It is truly terrifying on many levels, and it manages to keep the tone solidly until the last thirty minutes or so.
This is when the trouble comes in. The movie drastically shifts gears in the last thirty minutes. In truth, the last thirty minutes were like an entirely different movie. This is not to say the plot changes. It doesn’t. Everything follows very logically. But the film feels different. The tone is changed completely, and there is suddenly a different visual to the film, and it loses its very subtle and satisfying feel.
The end result of this shift is a slightly less terrifying feeling than we had in the first two thirds of the film. And this is a bummer. The lighting of the climax is overdramatic, and the physical deformity of the “demon” is overdone. That’s the problem, it seems, with the end of the film. It’s overdone. And this is the thing that keeps me from saying, “Holy shit! This movie was amazing!” Up until the climax, I was ready to say that I did. I was ready to profess it the greatest horror movie of the last five years. But I can’t do that. I have to say that it’s simply one of the better horror movies of the last five years.
I feel like the Duke, and all I can say with great certainty is “Generally I like it.” So when I am asked if I think people should see it, well, I have to “yes.” They should see it. It’s still better than any of the schlock that has come out in major studio release. And for the most part, the film is totally rad and makes us crazy scared and happy. So yes, see it. But be ready the shift. Be ready to change gears or you’ll be really disappointed.
In either case, Ti West is something to grateful for. One can hope he’ll just keep this up, maybe he’ll be the savior of the horror genre from here on out. Maybe he can slowly grow and develop into a new atmospheric horror filmmaker who understands those of who show up no matter what-even though we are too smart for most of the crapola that comes out these days. Maybe he can save us all.
