Skip to main content

The House of the Devil (2009) - Ti West

The House of the Devil is such an intriguing movie right from the beginning. Ti West does a great job of making you feel like you are watching an old VHS.  Remember those days. Walking down to the video store and picking up some creepy looking movie, judged solely by the cover. Those were the days. West does a great job of taking everything that I remember about watching those movies and shoving it into an hour and a half. The soundtrack, the style, the feel... its all from the eighties. 

The House of the Devil is a really cool movie that deserves some attention. Ti West is a new comer to film making that had a lot to prove following his debut flop, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. A follow-up to Eli Roth's awesome Cabin Fever. 

The plot revolves around a young girl that answers an ad looking for a babysitter, to house sit for the evening. The girl that replies gets the deal of a lifetime. She goes to the house and ends up meeting the weirdest family. They are eccentric and bizarre, but hey, she is offered a ton of money. Why not take the job? Right? 

This movie hits all of the right buttons with me. It has the creepy style that I have come to know and love, since starting the project. When I first watched it, I couldn't stand it. I unfairly wrote the movie off as a straight to video crap fest that would sit on my Netflix queue collecting dust. It wasn't until I sat down and held back those allegations that I really enjoyed the movie. 


The acting is one of the key elements. Tom Noonan, a veteran actor, really sets this movie off. He has everything going for him. He acts like the creepiest person ever. If anything watch this movie just to see his performance. If you want to see who I am talking about, check out the religion episode of the hit comedy show Louie. He does a fantastic job of being a total creep in that as well. 


This is a great nu-horror movie that is turning on a new leaf in the horror genre. Ti West and Eli Roth are only the beginning of a new breed of horror directors that are ready to reshape the field. The horror movie legacy has been tarnished by years of oppression at the hands of the "moral majority". Now it is time for a new face. Time to be scared. Thank you Ti West. 
  • Filmed in Connecticut
  • Filmed on 16mm film to give it that real "retro" style
  • Promotional copies of the DVD were released in a clam shell case, similar to early VHS tapes in the 80's

Labels:

Comments

thirdman said…
I know this one isn't for everyone, but for me The House of the Devil was my favorite horror film of 2009. Growing up on films like this I was amazed at how much Ti West was able to make this film look and feel like it was 20-30 years old. Plus, the slower buildup and lack of overly gruesome death scenes made this one stand above the majority of horror films these days.
September 6, 2010 at 1:25 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »

Spookies (1986) - Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner

It's impossible to get a decent movie when you take two films and just squash them together. That is essentially the story of how this movie came together. The film started as Twisted Souls. However, according to the financial backer they didn't have enough horror. So they ended up hiring another guy to come in and add a monster in virtually every scene.  This movie started out being directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. It basically is the tale of two sets of teenagers that arrive to a strange building surrounded by a strange cemetery. It was your usual tale of teenagers in a big hows with a few monsters. Then they brought in Genie Joseph and added even more. Like a haunted birthday party, a murderous cat-man, zombies, and an old wizard. It really became a smorgasbord of horror with a very thin plot-line leading it around. This movie is hard to summarize in a conventional way. It just packs so much.  The most interesting part of this movie are defini
2 comments
Not scared yet? »

Le Diable au Convent (1899) - George Melies

Le Diable au Convent is longer than the two previous Georges Méliès ventures into short form horror. This particular French short shows the Devil himself running a convent and terrorizing the poor old nuns that live there. However he is finally vanquished by the good of Faith. This is yet another Méliès classic, showcasing the art work that really goes into his short film-making. This is one of the earliest examples of a horror movie that could rely on its elaborate set design and artistic design. Everything in this film, although horribly aged, has been packaged extremely well. If you are a fan of production and set design then I would highly recommend just about anything that Melies has his name on. Though nothing that is considered too extreme actually happens, Satan does have his way with a convent. The satanic imagery itself must have kept this film on the traveling carnival circuit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the good moral bag that society shoved itself into back in
1 comment
Not scared yet? »