Release Date – 10/31/09 (limited)
Samantha is a college student who is looking for an apartment near campus. She is unhappy with her current dorm living arrangements and wants to branch out on her own. The problem is she doesn’t have a lot of cash so in desperation she calls the number of a Babysitter Wanted advertisement. The guy who answers the phone seems a bit strange but its good pay so Sam goes for it. When she gets to the big mansion, the family is creepy, and she finds out she is not there to babysit at all… but she agrees to take the job anyway. Of course that’s when weird stuff starts happening. The movie was one of those slow builders. We get a lot of character development for Sam with a creepy moment thrown in here and there. The shit doesn’t officially hit the fan until the final 20 minutes and boy does it ever hit the fan.
This movie has a complete 70s feel to it even though its brand new. Director Ti West did an amazing job making everything look completely retro. It was filmed on 16mm film in order to get this stylistic look. But the filming wasn’t the only thing that made this work. The editing played a big role in it with big text in the opening credits freezing the scenes as they popped up. The music was straight out of an old school horror flick. And the casting was even great. The lead played by Jocelin Donahue fit the role well. Wardrobe and everything made this movie feel like it’s a classic without being one. If you couldn’t tell by now, I was really impressed at how they pulled this off. Acting wise, Donahue was really good. You genuinely liked her because of a decent amount of time spent to making you like her. Other characters were Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov as the creepy family. Noonan was such a weird character. He was fantastic. You know something was not right with him but he didn’t come right out and show that to you. But the movie is mostly just the viewer following Sam alone.
The main problem with the movie is how all the hints point to something being weird about this family yet Sam can’t pass up the money. She seemed like a smart girl who knows when something isn’t right but she still took this babysitting job anyway. I just think she wouldn’t think twice before getting the hell out of there if she was really the character they were building up. I guess money really is a powerful thing. The other problem was a disclaimer to open the movie giving facts about Satanic cults in the 60s and 70s. Right away, you know this movie is now going to deal with the topic of cults. I would have rather been surprised with a big reveal instead of knowing ahead of time. Normally I wouldn’t spoil something like this but you know about it literally one second into the movie. Anyway, the movie is really cool and one of the better horror films to come out recently. But you have to really enjoy a slow build to your horror. Not many scares or anything for the majority of the movie. But when it hits, you will be bashed in the face with some HORROR! The final scene was a little cheesy but it didn’t ruin the experience for me. The House of the Devil is a retro horror hit. Props to Ti West on doing something really unique and getting it to work.
IMDB – 7.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 87%
Movie Wiseguys – 7.5/10