The House of the Devil (2009)

Director: Ti West

Starring: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov

In 1983, financially struggling college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret, putting her life in mortal danger.

Set in the 80s, the film so carefully paid attention to detail that I actually thought for a moment I was watching an 80s movie. Well done, Ti West!

The film is a bit slow moving for such a short film (only 95 minutes), and I can’t help but think it would have worked better as a short instead of a feature. A lot of screen time is made up of trivial moments, especially once Sam (Jocelin Donahue) enters the house. Very little interesting happens from that moment on and the real action doesn’t come until the final 15 minutes. Those final 15 minutes are good, but has a lot of flaws. At one point Sam is lying on the floor with her assailant a few steps in front of her. She then quickly reaches up to cut his throat and the next moment we see her lying on the floor again. With her assailant holding a gun there was no way she could have reached up AND advanced so quickly to be able to slit his throat, without him firing or moving away. It was just not believable, as with so many other incidents during the climax.

Somewhere around the halfway mark, shocks come when you least expect it, and that was really great!! I had so much hope for the film, but the things Sam did in the house to pass the time (her time and the film’s!) was so annoying that I didn’t root for her anymore). This film was sadly forgettable – for me at least…