Review of The House of the Devil (2009) by Adam M — 10 Mar 2011

It's supposed to be a tribute to American horror movies of the late-70s-early-80s, but an above-average American horror movie in 1982 was not this good and not nearly as devoted to atmosphere and stretching the length of shots out until suspense hangs so heavy in the frame that we want it to end but we're not sure if we can deal with it exploding into violence. For that style, West seems to be taking lessons from Roth and Tarantino and perhaps some of the European horror in the 70s that influenced them.

He borrows that the general approach but fully owns the realism and understatement in the dialogue, which give the movie a docudrama quality. Greta Gerwig and Dee Wallace have a talent for selling the dialogue like it coincidentally shows artistic precision. With everything underexposed like in Godfather Part 2, a lot of House of the Devil feels like an arty docudrama about a campfire story.