The House of the Devil (2009) - REVIEW

The House of the Devil is the kind of movie that either you like it or you don't, there really is no in between. It's the kind of movie that has audiences and critics divided. I can tell you that I loved the concept, the setting, the props, the way it was shot and all that stuff. However, I did not enjoy the movie as a whole and I'm gonna tell you why. You can either hate me for it or love me for my brutal honestly.

The beginning of the movie was fine, the end was... meh but I could've easily done without everything in the middle. In my opinion, with a little more gloss, this movie would've made a great short film. However, it wasn't. It was long, painfully long. The only thing this film effectively did was bore me to the point where all I wanted to do was dig the boogers out of my nose (kidding).

The main character, Samantha (Joceline Donahue), had no depth or substance and in fact, the character I found the most colorful had her face blown off within the first 30 minutes *sniff*. And while we're on the subject of characters, let me just say that we all know Tom Noonan does creepy very well but even his performance fell flat for me.



It's so slow paced that her pizza delivery came in real time. I'm serious! After being a little creeped out by some random old house noises, she decides to call in a pizza order. Then she had a candy bar, attempted some homework... no pizza... watched a little TV, rummaged through some drawers... no pizza... put on her totally 80's cassette tape and had a Footloose moment around the entire house, broke a vase, cleaned it up... where's the fucking pizza!? I found myself more concerned about where the pizza was than whether or not she would finally open the right door and see the cluster fuck of dead bodies sprawled all over the floor.



After eating two bites of the "drugged" pizza, she has some more freak out moments and spends the next 15 minutes of the movie walking around with a knife behind her back.

Now, finally, 75 minutes or so into the movie the action begins. But just when I start digging it, it's over and I'm left just kinda sitting there in WTF mode.

I guess where this movie went wrong for me was it's slow pace. I like the in your face kind of horror that has you on the edge of your seat because you can't wait to see what happens next not because you're afraid you'll fall asleep if you sit back.



I really wanted to like this movie. I had heard such great things. If you're a fan of the slow paced horror, this is probably something for you. If not, I'd suggest adopting a pet or helping a color blind person with a paint by number, anything but this movie.