Saw this one for Halloween.  It's out in extremely limited release, and is Ti West's latest.  I saw it "On Demand" and was very happy we didn't waste the money in a theater.

SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS     SPOILERS

The movie is set in the early 80's and is a throw back and nod to horror films of that era.  It sure has that look and feel.

Although literally just about nothing happens for 40 minutes, and then nothing else happens for another 25 minutes, the first hour for me really worked for some odd reason.  It was painfully slow, but I assumed the payoff would be worth it, based on all the positive reviews I've read.

Nope...didn't happen.  The finale was terrible and based on that, the movie itself is terrible.  Very cliche, weak, obvious ending, with the classic tacked on last spin as well.  What a huge letdown cause I was genuinely scared throughout, until they tried to deliver, and failed miserably.

Even bigger an issue, is that there is literally zero replay value here.  Gore is minimal, and budget appears to be nonexistent.

Acting is actually quite good, IMO, and everything really feels like we're back in the late 70's, early 80's. Tom Noonan delivers an interesting performance that totally works for me, but it is a bit odd.

How this has an 86% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes is completely beyond me.  They had so many opportunities to make this really good and failed terribly when all was said and done.

Big disappointment!

Writer/Director/Editor Ti West had a promising start with The Roost, a no-budget monster feature marked by strong pacing, brilliant cinematography (with largely natural light), and an excellent economy of both style and script.  West would then tackle Cabin Fever 2, a John Waters-esque gross-out horror flick over which he eventually lost control to the film's producers.  No matter what happened in the editing room, though, it was clear that West had missed the mark with Cabin Fever 2 during production, and the film, despite flares of brilliance both comedic and horrific, was absolutely dreadful overall.  It was with some trepidation that I began House of the Devil, because with the current state of American horror films -- which are, in a word, boring -- I desperately hoped that this new filmmaker would prove himself to still be a rising star.

Hoo boy, did he ever.

The House of the Devil is a real horror film, plain and simple.  Fun, tense, minimalist, and thrilling, the movie disregards everything that has happened in the last 30 years of filmmaking and takes us back to roughly 1980, where the people and environments look totally natural, the fun is in the suspense rather than the gore, and the horror is in the silence rather than the noise.

The plot is a simple one: a young student struggling to make rent for a new place agrees to babysit for a strange rich couple outside of town.  Wrong house.  Despite the familiar plot, though, the film -- which is delightfully slow-paced -- never becomes boring, due in equal parts to the dynamic direction and cinematography and to all-around strong performances from the cast.  Ti West is very comfortable in giving us full scenes of everyday conversation between his two young female leads (Jocelin Donahue and Greta Gerwig), whose totally believable chit-chat provides us with a totally genuine understanding of and sympathy for the characters.  Unlike the majority of newer horror films, where the action of establishing character is at best perfunctory, West allows us scene after scene to really come to know Samantha, the babysitter, and her best friend Megan.

And then, for the majority of the film, nothing happens.  And the suspense is incredible.  

This is what The House of the Devil has to show audiences and filmmakers alike about real horror.  Take a character and make us *actually* care about them, and the scares don't have to be big.  The audience winces as Samantha climbs up stairs, is startled by the phone, breaks a vase.  Suspense is anticipation, and for most of the film, that is what the viewer is left to do.  There is a violent, action-packed wrap-up, but it is just that: a wrap-up, a denoument.  The natural conclusion of a story that we have already delighted in watching unfold.

So why does this work?  Cinematography.  Sound.  Score.  The score is brilliant.  As minimalist as the film, but haunting, and used perfectly to effect -- never there when there should be silence.  Sound; or lack thereof.  For the bulk of the movie there is not a great deal of dialogue, with Samantha alone in the house.  Several films lately have shown us the power of silence -- There Will Be Blood, Antichrist, No Country For Old Men -- and House of the Devil continues this trend.  Silence and/or stillness are used to great effect.

Cinematography.  Ti West's shot choices are simply incredible.  Simple, unobtrusive, stylistic but not flashy.  Camera moves, especially zooms, are effortless and elegant, while the close-ups in the film are used sparsely and for very specific effect.  In combination with the sound elements described above, West and shooter Eliot Rockett are able to turn a seemingly harmless dialogue sequence into a work of dread.  

The movie may not work for everyone.  There is no getting around the fact that the pacing is leisurely, that the violence is relatively minimal, and that, in countless ways, the film is different from what people seem to enjoy in horror today.  But regardless of how people may feel about it and whether or not it succeeded, The House of the Devil is a horror film from the school of the greats.  Here we are given something that would fit right in with the post-Hitchcock generation greats; I can see it now, on the shelf between Sisters and Halloween.  Hitchcock, or Carpenter, or Kubrick, this is not, not yet -- but The House of the Devil is solid evidence that before his career is over, Ti West may well have made the first horror classic of our new century.

This movie is a great horror film. Director Ti West's best asset is that he isn't in a hurry, and as a result the suspense that is built is great. I also really enjoyed Cabin Fever 2, though the Producers tacked on ending was pretty bad. I want to check out The Roost and Trigger Man, but I can't find them anywhere. Anybody know where I can get them?

Can't wait for West's upcoming film The Innkeepers.

~Zack~

The Roost is available on Neflix...it's in my que, but I've heard it's pretty crappy.

I've heard otherwise. Actually, i've heard it's pretty great for a no budget horror flick. i don't have netflix, can't seem to figure out how to set the damn thing up. :(

~Zack~

Always interesting how people see things.

Despite some stylish directing and a decent atmosphere, this one was terribly weak in my opinion.

Just a very poor man's Rosemary's Baby.

Felt padded throughout, as though it was made without a script and it was all just stretched out to fill the time. It's a ten minute short version of Rosemary's Baby with 80 minutes of filler.

It almost got good for about ten seconds, then it died again.