The House Of The Devil
What will strike you first about the Ti West directed ‘House Of The Devil’ is that this film could easily have been found in someone’s loft that hasn’t been up there for twenty-five years, such is the attention to detail that this all too authentic take on the genre instils. Yes, there are small giveaways dotted about the film that denote it’s true age, but as an ‘under-the-radar’ low budget horror flick, Ti West shows an incredible sense of what the eighties felt and looked like. So much so that you could easily believe, without too much close examination, that this was made at the time it is set.
The titles run like the opening credits of a ‘Hart To Hart’ or ‘Murder, She Wrote’ episode, or even some of the John Carpenter movies of the mid-eighties. I was most reminded early on, of the more radical, stylish and usually jumpy Hammer films from near their eventual demise. In keeping with the period genre, you can also feel a much more odious sense of tension in the first half of the picture, coupled with a complete lack of immediacy which many modern horror flicks feel obliged to conform to. The film is never rushed to its pivotal moments, drawing the movie into its quietly unassuming web as the hauntingly pedestrian pace moves ever closer to the inevitable.
The film rightly does away with the sense of overwhelming nanny-stateness that we suffer from today and shows the lack of belief from our characters that they will get into any kind of trouble, which is more believable during this apparently more innocent time. Ti West highlights the state of today’s’ pre-occupation with all things threatening by simply reminding us of a time when this kind of thing just didn’t enter our heads. In this respect, at least, West has got this spot on.
That is not to say that the shocks when they do eventually come also hark back to the eighties. The horror elements and standards are right up to date, even if the choice to display them is most often rooted firmly in ‘scare’ and not ‘sicken’.
The performances too are all top notch, and better than you could usually expect or even hope for in a slow-burner like this with one eye firmly on the budget. Joceline Donahue takes her first real leading role of any note and fashions a curiously polite, yet misguidedly savvy teenager out of Samantha, supported most notably by a cracking turn by Tom Noonan as the suitably creepy Mr Ulman. Finishing things off to a tee with a score of howling strings in moments of tension is Jeff Grace, whose soundtrack could have been literally lifted from’ Prince Of Darkness’ or ‘The Devil Rides Out’ to name only two.
In summary, The House Of The Devil is a movie that turns its back on its conventional genre fare being made these days and visits a more innocent and less visceral time for horror, where audiences hadn’t been rendered apathetic to jumps and scares and protracted periods of build-up by torture porn and the need for an immediate and overtly bloody experience. Yes, this does also have it’s share of blood, but West uses it sparingly and to excellent effect.
Surprisingly satisfying. All schlock horror makers should take note.
The House Of The Devil is on limited release in the UK from March 19th 2010
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