HOUSE OF THE DEVIL Post Release

Well, that's not good news.

I liked it better than Devin did, a camera prowling after a girl "alone" in an old house at night works for me, but his criticisms are spot on. Looks good, but completely arbitrary and meaningless with the 80s homage adding nothing. And the ending just doesn't work. Plus the opening goes on way too long. There's one event that really works, I think Devin alludes to it nicely in his review, but it's a movie that's otherwise completely without surprise. Doesn't even have a cat jump scare.

It really doesn't help that the main character is as generic as can be. Supposedly she's a clean freak, but there's really only one gag for that, and that's a trait not a characterization. Add on she price gouges more than necessary and accidentally causes property damage and it's hard to be entirely sympathetic towards her.

I'll add that the movie made me appreciate just how good Jamie Lee Curtis was in Halloween even more. Caring for the protagonist helps a lot in a horror movie.

I agree that Tom Noonan is very good in his main scene.

I trust your opinion and everything, Devin but I'll still probably check it out at some point just because that poster is so amazing. Until I see it for myself, there is always going to be a small part of me thinking, "If it's so bad, how did they come up with such a fantastic poster!?"

Is it just me or did Greta Gerwig look like she had eaten one of the Duplass brothers since the last time she was in anything?

I agree, but I honestly wouldn't have recognized her without seeing her name in the opening credits. Maybe it was just the 80's hair.

So kickass poster and period setting aside, this flick is a dud? That's damn sad. I'll probably still check it out, but this flick being a dud and Cabin Fever 2 still being unreleased do West nothing good.

I disagree with the review because I rather enjoyed the movie, but I'm much more susceptible to the slow burn than most and was with the film one hundred percent of the way. I felt like West just gave you enough knowledge that things were fucked from the get-go to keep me strung along until the end.

And the way I saw the 70's/80's homage stuff working was that the film is using a very modern sort of sound design and gore FX that butt heads in an incongruous way with the rather purposefully stiff camera movement, but I thought the combination of those competing styles ended with some sort of weird horror movie alchemy because damned if it didn't work for me.

Just finished this. The movie did a nice job of mimicking the look of older horror flicks, and Jocelin Donahue and Greta Gerwig are incredibly cute. That's about all I liked about this movie. I was particularly terrified during the 30th time Donahue walked up a flight of stairs and reached her hand out slowly toward something. I don't mind a nice slow burn horror film, but if you're gonna do it at least have some sort of satisfying climax, this doesn't.

I caught this on Demand. I dug it, but the criticisms are dead on. I get that they're trying to go with the slow burn, building dread thing, but they simply didn't generate enough tension. The payoff also was kind of a let down as well, and the end scene left more to be desired.

I don't know if Dud is the word, but it's underwhelming.

Watched this last night on HDNet Movies. Devin's review is spot-on.

Predictable and plodding. I have no problems with set up or building suspense and atmosphere as long as there is some sort of payoff to that but there never was. It was nice seeing Tom Noonan working though. I thought he did well with what he was given to work with.

I gotta say this film gave me the creeps in an old-fashioned sense. The slow-burn horror flicks are usually the ones that are quite effective for me. But I understand where Devin's coming from. The tone and atmosphere just happened to be very unsettling in the state-of-mind I was in last night.

This movie made Jim Jarmusch films look "frentic" in comparison. Agonizingly slow and uninspired. Big mistake bumping off Gerwig early as she was the only bright spot in the film.

Well, I loved it. So did a lot of other folks in the theater I was in, judging from the applause. Maybe being trapped in a dark movie theater with a big screen looming over me helped. The slow burn had me all worked up in knots. Great old school horror, IMHO. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I think it's the look of the film, Devin. There's something sinister and foreboding about the film's visual style.

After two decades of slickly-produced, overly-exaggerated horror flicks, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL feels like an old friend from the past.

Yeah, I think old school is more talking about the way the film is shot than anything else. I can totally get not being on board with this movie though. If you're stomach isn't coiled like a spring throughout the first hour plus this movie simply is going to be a chore to get through. For me, my nerves were being completely worked over. It gave you just enough of a taste with that (awesome) early scare and little tidbits showing how terribly wrong things are without our lead knowing that I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop and absolutely loved the editing crescendo that led to it.

Lots of old school movies are boring as shit. (Don't Go Into The Woods, Demon Wind, Predator: The Quietus)

This one seems like my "geek acceptance" thing, where all the bad reviews in the world won't keep me from checking it out. Sigh.

It plays to the fetishists, I guess. The way some guys will see anything with D&D tropes in them, or the way gothy dorks will get behind Forever Knight.

And I'm always intrigued by movie forgeries, counterfeits, when a filmmaker tries to ape period aesthetics.

The trailer appealed to me because it gave off a creepy LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH vibe. It's definitely aimed at people with a sweet spot for 70's & early 80's low budget horror.

There's about forty minutes of this film where I thought I'd wandered across a slightly spooky HGTV network show. It's nothing but walking up and down staircases and across living rooms.

Jessica being a great example of boresploitation done right- boring ass 70s horror with just enough atmosphere and cool bits (e.g. freaky backwards hanging tractor guy) to justify its existence.

See, I think the film is scary in its psychological terror. When it comes to things involving the Satanic occult, I tend to become uneasy and on edge. Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov play one hell of a creepy duo.

So, I caught this yesterday and I enjoyed it. I agree with a lot of what Devin has to say -- there seems to be padding in almost every scene in the first half of the film and as a result it feels like almost nothing happens. I was expecting the end to go nowhere, so when it actually did I was pleasantly surprised. It gets pretty crazy and intense there so I don't agree that there is no real payoff. I felt the payoff was pretty satisfactory.

Having grown up in New England in the late 70's/early 80's, I felt the film captured the creepy vibe of that area and time period magnificently. The performances were all strong across the board and the lead bopping around the house listening to The Fixx was adorable. I loved the way the film was shot; the lighting and the super 16 look was amazing. For me, that was enough to get me through the slow bits. And Noonan and Woronov were a lot of fun.

It's not really a great film, I will admit, but if you've got a soft spot for this type of horror film, a type of horror film that is never made these days, I think THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is well worth a watch.

Huh? Don't Go In The Woods is like, the opposite of boring. It's essentially a piece of low-budget free form experimental cinema masquerading as a slasher film, eschewing traditional plot and narrative entirely in favor of loosely connected murder vignettes and gory tone poems. It's actually one of my favorite films of all time.

You lack a soul.

All the 'boring' stuff leading up the end sequence wouldn't have been bad if there had been a decent payoff. I enjoyed the progression of moving farther up the stairs every time, slowly getting deeper into this dark world. It's an obvious concept, but each of the sequences on their own are well paced - though it would have helped if there had been less filler in between and before the whole Devilhouse setup. Anyway, the end is such a mess. It's so tonally off relative to the rest of the movie, right from the start with the sequence of eight flashes of light, into the extremely clumsy shaky cam, confusing staging, blahblahblah. Aside from the sloppiness, it seems to get more into a 00s style of horror. And then when she shoots herself, no we didn't care at all - tension had not been built around the outcome of her character, so the preceding 90 minutes feel like a waste. And her being pregnant is just really dumb. Why can't we have a movie end without hinting towards unwanted sequels?

I wouldn't call it a hint toward a sequel anymore than the reveal of the baby in Rosemary' Baby hinting at a sequel. It's just telling us that the devil worshipper's plot succeeded.

Sure as shit was.

Even it was Ms Donahue tiptoeing around a creepy old house for the most part, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is still the most lively Ti West movie I've seen so far. And I agree with Devin that the '80s trappings are there to give it an 'arty' tone that'll attract a hipster crowd.

I'm sorry but this is just too cool.

http://www.amazon.com/House-Devil-VH...4018555&sr=1-2


Yeah, I'm that kind of nerd, I'm buying that shit.

As a horror fan who still owns and operates his own VCR, that is a beautiful selling point for me.

The marketing greatly surpasses the actual film.


Dud is exactly the word I would use. Pointlessly no burning, a lead who is almost completely unlikeable (FOUR hundred bucks to be a snooping little shit who breaks things and makes as much noise as possible while babysitting an elderly woman at midnight?) and what felt like a pretty abrupt tonal shift about 3/4 of the way through leading to the ending that doesn't make any sense and is totally unearned.

[SPOILERS]

So these were satan worshippers trying to get the devil into some young tummy during a seemingly important astronomical event - why was the son a split second from blowing her brains out before she cut his throat? Was he just going to say 'fuck it, we'll catch the next longest lunar eclipse in history'? And their whole plan was to just, leave for a while and hope not only that her friend would stop 15 feet away for a cigarette before driving home, but that the babysitter would call for pizza so they could spike it, or maybe that she had an inner-ear issue which causes her to conveniently pass out when she gets disoriented? I'm not even sure, they set up both sort of but they're also both kind of absurd; what if she didn't get hungry? What if she had another friend to call and pick her up? What if when she was snopping around in every room in the house, she decided to check out the basement and noticed the giant satanic ritual chamber? I realize I'm getting off into "what-if" fantasy land, but the movie is just such a mess that all the old-school vibe in the world can't save it.

Don't even get me started on the fact she was creeping around in a dark house (light switches existed in the 80's, right?) where she knows an old lady is staying, with a big fucking kitchen knife in her hand. Yeah, that's gonna end well when she startles you going for a glass of warm milk. Plus, why the knife at all? Nothing happened to warrant ginsu by that point.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, Devin nailed it. The poster and vhs thing are neat, though.

Being unabashedly an '80s junkie (in all things, if that diner from Back to the Future II existed, I'd so go there), I felt obligated to check House of the Devil out. And the best thing I can say about it--other than incredible marketing--is that West nails that late '70s - early '80s aesthetic. It certainly brought to mind "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark", although, y'know, stuff actually happened in that tv movie. Other than that, the only thing to recommend this film are the performances of Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov and Greta Gerwig (oddly adorable performance and the pizza scene was hilarous). Oh, and I kind of loved the opening credit sequence.

So, basically what everyone else said.

It's the equivalent of a powder keg in a Looney Tunes cartoon. While Yosemite Sam (hmmmm, the main character here is Sam) runs frantically about, the lit fuse slowly burns down to the keg. And once it reaches the keg, absolutely nothing happens until Yosemite Sam approaches it. And then it explodes quickly and devastatingly... I should have watched some old cartoons instead.

What a lame ending. I was bored out of my skull at various points, but it all would've been worth it if the film had nailed the landing. That said, I'm glad the film was made. Points for effort.

The House of the Devil feels like it was an aesthetic concept ("cool 80s slasher retro!") well before it was a story, and that when it was finally a story, it was not enough material for a feature-length affair.

West, trying to be as cute as possible, also makes a bad tactical error by announcing, at the film's opening scroll, that we are dealing with satanists, a move which totally takes away the film's major surprise even before the opening credits have arrived.

Oh well, at the very least, I dig the hell out of the opening theme.

Well, I liked to look at it.

Well, it had a couple of things going for it, but it pretty much ruins all of 'em. This guy definitely needs to team up with a good script writer, and focus on what he does best: nail the mood. If he finds a good story & someone who knows how to write some scenes around the mood he creates, his next one will be one to watch out for at least.
Stuff I haven't seen mentioned in the thread (SPOILERS, I guess):
-I guess there's a couple of references in there that I missed, but one I felt geekily gleeful to spot was the van from 70's satanic roadmovie 'Race With The Devil' parked out front.
-Also, Tom Noonan & wife were wonderfully creepy at first, but boy, weren't these the most horribly bumbling villains EVER? They were so inept at keeping a teenage girl captive, at times I felt like watching a Scooby Doo ep. Lucky for them the girl turned out to be even more moronic in failing to blow out her own brains at point blank, but c'mon really. These are the people Satan entrusts with the responsibility for the coming of the Anti-Christ? I say we needn't worry then.

She escapes while they literally watch! I mean, it's just a poorly-designed escape scene, to say the least. It feels lazy and a cheat.

She also takes out one villain who just turns away from her and lets her stab a knife in her back. How convenient!

Another villain has a gun, but lets her close enough with a knife to deliver what would be a rather spectacular throat slice for a trained assassin, let alone a clueless college girl.

I also love that Satan's Master Plan comes down to a girl deciding to eat pizza. Why not just knock her ass out as soon as her friend leaves her? Why go through all the trouble of the elaborate pizza delivery and killing time away from the property the whole night?

Silly!

Good point. That would've been better. Though maybe they included that after determining people might give up on the film when it started to seem like it wasn't going anywhere.

How dare you question the Lord of Darkness! If the Sovereign of the Eternal Pit wants the vessel for his offspring to enjoy a delicious pizza before she is delivered unto him, than so be it! Hail Satan! HAIL SATAN!

To be fair, there's been times when I would have sold my immortal soul for a good pizza.

It reminded me A LOT of The Cars' Moving in Stereo.

I mean, it is a cute punchline. What better way to attract/attack a college kid than through their inherent pizza cravings?

The only food choice that would have been more fitting would have been a cup of spiked ramen noodles.


Of course! You are only human!


Same here. Even as I appreciate the beat, I realize that the tune, like the rest of the film, is mostly on loan from better sources.