Review of The House of the Devil (2009) by Ruben R — 10 Jul 2010

I applaud the effort that went into recreating the vibe and setting of 80s slashers, but hell those movies were never scary and rarely decent. This is near to decent, but still has a very WTF? ending that gives no answers, real or feigned.

The primary problem with this movie is that it takes forever to introduce any element of horror and build suspense. Until then, it's just a girl wandering about a strange house acting irrationally afraid (she didn't see and doesn't know about the one earlier incident of violence).

When "scary time" kicks in, there's enough fake blood to fill a pool and it's a nonstop barrage of false suspense to compensate for the utter lack of it in the rest of the film. This was toted as one of the best films of the year by some horror buffs, and I feel like if the best that can be done is a (completely non-terrifying) tribute to a genre that never had any real purpose (even entertainment!) to begin with, then the horror film industry is a far dire condition than I previously thought.

To say it again: I applaud the effort that went into production design and the cinematography which early in the film is able to achieve an aura of creepiness and the decent acting work, but that is where any shred of praise ends.