The House of the Devil review

Ti West's "The House of the Devil" is one of those movies that probably once you know what you're walking into it becomes a stronger overall piece, but less frightening. I'm not saying this to knock the movie either, because it's much more of a simple suspense story rather than a full fledged horror movie. The film is heavily mimicked after similar styled films of the 70's and 80's and begins with a similar 'based on true, unexplained events' tag, when it's about as real as the Coen's "Fargo". It could happen, but we don't know if any of this did and as long as it's interesting we really don't care too much. Jocelin Donahue played Samantha, a college girl that's trying to move out of her dorm and into a house off campus. The real estate agent (cameo by horror legend Dee Wallace, always great seeing her) waves the fees so long as Samantha can come up with the first months rent by Monday. Regardless of her waving the other fees, that's still money she doesn't have.

At school she notices a babysitting ad on the board and gives it a ring. There is no answer. However as she walks away the pay phone she called from rings and it's the man who posted the wanted ad. Surely this must be a bizarre sign. Eh, maybe not, but after meeting the man played by Tom Noonan ('Manhunter'), his wife Mary Woronov and generally being in their very secluded house for a little while and THEN something might click that this place and these people are bug nuts. However the plot REALLY thickens when he informs Samantha that there is no baby and instead they have to look after his wife's elderly mother. He even offers her four hundred dollars for the work. She accepts.

What happens then is really tough to play out, but it's something that relays HEAVILY on the viewers patience and willing to wait for it to get into it's real horror elements. I will say that once it does it doesn't last too long which is unfortunate because it works quite well. Stylistically "The House of the Devil" feels quite old and not in a showy sense, but in a low budget and slightly off cliter technically sense with some real talent behind the camera. West is honestly on his way to getting his name really out there and I'd love to see this guy get a real budget and some other talents for a horror picture. I won't say this is something completely new, but it does offer up a lot of well done suspense that's never in a rush to get to the juicy stuff. That restraint is something very admirable in this day in age where there's always a mad rush to get into the violence or macabre.