The House Of The Devil (2009)....has a lot of fans among horror pundits, purists and even casual popcorn gobblers who wouldn't know Ti West from Ty-rannosaurus.
West, the creator of the 'XXX'-'Pearl'-'Maxxxine' trilogy, wrote directed and edited this unique, deliberate throwback to 1980's horror films.....(for you young 'uns' who weren't around in that era, these were videocassettes you settled for when the video store clerk told you all the copies of "Ghostbusters" were rented out for the night.....)
With even more ambitious intent, West mixed in the '80's teen slasher genre with the '70's Satan-run-amuck movies touched off by "The Exorcist" and "The Omen". (Believe us when we tell you that during that decade, the Devil became as big an A-Lister as Burt Reynolds, Barbra Streisand and Steve McQueen)
West's gimicky stunt here wasn't much different than Peter Bogdanovich copying 1940's films ("What's Up Doc", "The Last Picture Show") or Quentin Tarantino channeling all the grindhouse junk he absorbed while working in a video store.
"The House Of The Devil" is shot in 16 millimeter, reducing the visuals to the grainy, soft focus of a worn out VSH tape. And that minimalism also applies to the story.....
Cash strapped college cutie Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) unwisely accepts a babysitting gig in a Creepy Old House in that well know location, the Middle Of ****in' Nowhere. She's driven there by her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig, in her Indie Ingenue career phase).
In the Creepy Old House, she meets Creepy Couple the Ullmans (Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, both familiar from playing Creepy People in '80's films) They just need her to watch over Mrs. U's barely seen or heard invalid old mother.
From this point, the film tests an audience's patience to the max, eating up almost an hour of running time devoted to Samantha's wandering about the house. Little by little she (and we) discover there's something seriously twisted and evil going on in Creepy House......(which was already predicted by a previous shock surprise thrown at us earlier....)
As the Guru Of All Horror Wisdom Stephen King once remarked, ' Sooner or later, you gotta go Booga Booga'....and finally Ti West unleashes unholy hell upon poor Samantha......which of course leads to the Ironic Twist Epilogue designed to leave you slightly queasy.
While we duly admired the meticulous recreation of fundamental suspense filmmaking techniques, the draggy first hour soured us and the Ironic Twist is stupid on multiple levels......(but we couldn't tell you why without a jumbo Spoiler Alert. )
For horror completists, we suppose this one counts as an essential......but count us out from the crowd who judge it as clever and terrific.
Nope. 2 stars at best. (**).
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