The House Of The Devil is a 2009 film, that really feels like it was made in the early 80s, which is interesting to see a modern film with that nostalgic feeling to it. It’s the simple story of Samantha who takes a baby sitting job from some weirdos in the middle of nowhere, on the night of a solar eclipse. The film starts out by telling us how 70% of Americans in the 70s believed in the existence of satanic cults, so that should give you an idea where the film goes from there.
I can’t tell you too much of the story, because it’s mostly a movie about mood, with the real horror going down in the last twenty minutes or so. I can say that the sound design in this movie is awesome, and if you can, I suggest watching it with surround sound. The acting is also very well done, though for the most part you’ll be watching just Sam. But that’s ok, she’s cute as hell ,and can act.
The special effects are really well done, and there’s no cgi. Like I said, it’s got that 80s feel, so it’s all practical effects, which makes what gore the movie has stand miles above some of the other films released in 2009.
Directer Ti West wrote, edited, and directed this one, and you can tell a lot of love went into it. It’s a solid movie all around, and a great watch. Two thumbs up.
This is one of those movies. You know, you saw the trailer for it, missed it in theaters, and then forgot about it just as quickly. I didn’t get around to seeing it when it was in theaters even though I wanted to, and no one was talking about it, so I forgot I had wanted to see it. So how does it hold up 6 years later? Let’s find out.
Story follows a group of 20-somes on their way to a college football game, when they have to stop to rest. The next morning the fan belt on one of the cars is cut, so half of them head to the game, while two of them, Wade and Carly, played by Jared Padalecki and Elisha Cuthbert, go off into town for a new one.
The highlight of the town is a Wax Museum, which is entirely made out of wax. Inside are some very life like wax dummies, but none of them are of famous people like you would normally expect. Well there’s a simple reason for that. They arn’t famous people, their people that had the misfortune of finding the town, and being covered in wax! The rest of the movie pretty much turns into a fight for your life typical slasher, but hey, I’m ok with that.
The acting is pretty hit or miss. Some of the actors know what their doing, while others ( Paris Hilton * cough*) seem out of place with some bad reactions. As I was watching I thought I was going to say that the characters actions seemed to fit well for their characters, but then I got to the half way point. Once Carly and her brother get together, they start making some terrible choices. They hide a gun, only to go looking for one after. They also decide they need some light, while running/hiding from the killers, so they start flipping switches like they were having a seizure, resulting in a light show that tells the killer just were they are. Smooth.
The gore was surprisingly well done. Every cut, impaling, or straight out beating looks brutal, and for a movie that takes over forty minutes to get to the good stuff, that’s important. The effects of the wax house melting were good at first, but felt too effects heavy by the end. It started with the wax dummies melting, revealing skeletons underneath, and it looked quite nice. But it finished with the whole place on flames, everything melting, the entire building folding in on it’s self, etc. It just seemed to be too much going on at once.
The killers were pretty interesting. They were Siamese twins that had been separated, leaving one looking fine, and the other needing a mask to cover his disfigurement. The good looking brother treats his disfigured brother like a freak, and using it to mind control him. Throughout the climax of the movie, there is a few scenes that use the idea of the twins for some alright imagery, but it feels pretty forced.
All in all, I’d say check it out. You get some cool effects, and some nice gore. Not to mention seeing Paris Hilton die, and for what it’s worth, that’s always fun.
Popular genre actor Sid Haig is celebrating his 72nd today, so what better way to honor this great bald actor, then to learn a little about him. It’s not widely known,but Sid Haig started his career as a paid dancer, at the age of seven. Also not widely known about the man, is his musical talent. A year out of high school he signed a recording contract, and recorded ” Full House” with the T-birds, which made it to #4 on the charts.
In high school, Sid’s drama teacher,Alice Merrill, encouraged Sid to pursue an acting career, even having one of her Hollywood contacts come and see him in play. That contact was Dennis Morgan, who advised Sid to continue his education, and think about becoming an actor.
Two years later Sid enrolled in The Pasadena Playhouse, and got his first acting job in the student film, The Host. This set in motion a long last career of over fifty films, and more then three hundred tv appearances. Early in his career, he spent most of his time typecast portraying heavies, due to his large size and imposing figure. This led to him quitting acting in 1992 for five years, in which he spent the time becoming a certified hypnotherapist. During these years, popular director Quentin Taratino approached Sid to play the role of Marsellus Does He Look Like A Bitch Wallace, to which he declined, and has said since he always regretted the decision. Quentin later wrote the role of the judge in Jackie Brown for Sid.
Some of Sid`s genre films include, Halloween (2007), Brotherhood Of Blood (2007), Night Of The Living Dead 3d (2006), The Devil`s Rejects and House Of A Thousand Corpses (2005 & 2003), Galaxy Of Terror (1981), and Spider Baby (1968).
Sid Haig will always hold a special place in Horror Fan hearts, so from me, and all of the horror community, I want to say.
Happy Birthday Sid. I hope your having a good one.
I love it when you hear nothing but bad news about a movie, and then it turns out to be quite good. It’s like a little treat for my eyes. When I bought Open House I didn’t know anything about it, so like any interested person, I googled a bit. Everything I remember seeing said it wasn’t that good of a movie. I think they were wrong.
While at it’s core the movie is a glorified slasher, I don’t like it because it’s a slasher. I like the characters, they were written quite well, even if the movie plays off like an R-rated Criminal Minds(minus the FBI).
The story is about a couple that has just gotten a divorce, and are now selling their house. Brother and sister killing couple supreme, David and Lila, move into the house, without buying it. They go the old fashion way of real estate, kill everyone who enters. But David starts to fall for Alice ( owner of the house), and keeps her alive in secret. Alice knows her only way to survive is to ‘love’ David back. How far is she willing to go to live?
While a simplistic one location story, much like Inside, most of the movie is waiting to see who will show up to be killed next. The true shinning point of the movie is in the relationship between brother and sister. They are both quite crazy, David being the Submissive and Lila, being the dominate role. The relationship also has an air of sexual tension, which is almost creepy due to the taboo ( at least in North America) of incest.
I highly recommend the movie, just based on how fun it is to watch the siblings alone. And as a plus, the deaths are pretty fun to watch.
Hey guys, Star here again filling in for Zack. I really do hope you all enjoy my posts, so leave a comment if you’d rather just the classic HorrorDaily! Anyway, today I’m reviewing An American Haunting, another haunted house movie (as you all should know by now, they’re my favourite!). It is based on true events, which just make it that more awesome in my opinion. Anyway, I’ll just jump right into the review, thanks again for putting up with my reviews when Zack is too busy.
An American Haunting is your classic haunted house movie (of course, I mean, look at the title). At the beginning of the movie it shows a young girl holding a knife to her bedroom door, which is rattling, you’ve all heard it before. It then quickly switches to the young girl’s mother waking her up, oh guess what? It was just a dream. How original. Anyway, after the mom finds this broken porcelain doll in her daughters room, which the daughter found in the attic which is apparently off limits. Mom takes a shot of Absolut Vodka, (I love finding product placement in movies) and it suddenly switches to the 19th century,with new characters and more fucked up shit going on.
John Bell, the father in this new 19th century setting, is in the court room, settling a dispute about property theft. The case held in court isn’t important to the plot, but after the jury has made their decision, the woman on the other side of the issue, who was heard of to be a witch, told him as he was leaving the courtroom that she was going to curse him and his precious little girl, Betsy Bell. He kind of just shrugged it off until Betsy started being attacked at nighttime, she’d get thrown across her bedroom and her hair being ripped out; and in the daytime she was having visions of another little girl who would just disappear at random. Her family, an extremely religious friend and her school teacher all team up to try and get rid of the evil spirit that now lay upon their house. Good fucking job you damn witch.
Now read over that paragraph about half a dozen times. This film does get pretty repetitive with the attacks and such, getting worse and worse until Betsy is pretty much a lifeless doll, but there wasn’t much variation in the attacks, the visions and nightmares about attacks the family was having had more action and were more interesting than the real attacks themselves. Another thing that bothers me is how damn perfect Betsy looks throughout the whole movie. I mean, if I was up all night being fucking attacked night after night and seeing shit I would not look the same. Betsy should have looked haggard as fuck even halfway through the movie. Maybe I just have watched too many exorcism movies, but it just didn’t convince me at all.
It didn’t scare me at all, which was another disappointment of the film. I would have liked a little jump scare now and again. It appears as if they tried but it wasn’t effective at all. And I’m an anxiety-stricken pussy so for a real horror fan it would have been even less impressive. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy this movie, it had a disturbing twist which I cannot and will not reveal in this review, it just has some flaws that I could not avoid stating. It’s worth watching for sure if you can look past the flaws I mentioned, I’m just very picky and notice little things about that.
All in all, I’m going to give it a relatively decent score because the storyline was amazing, they just could have paid a little more attention to the little things that I have noticed.
