House
House
R | 07 November 2008 (USA)
House Trailers

Trying to recover from the nearly marriage-breaking stress following the death of their child, Jack (Reynaldo Rosales) and Stephanie (Heidi Dippold) spontaneously take off on a road trip. But when their car breaks down in a remote area, they find themselves in a horrific nightmare. Seeking shelter in a house, they soon realize that more danger lurks inside than outside in this spine-chiller based on Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti's best-seller.

Reviews
Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!
KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
aesgaard41 I usually don't buy DVDs of movies I've never watched because I don't want to get stuck with bad movies in my DVD collection, but I took a chance with this one and I've somewhat regretted it ever since. Unconnected to the "House" series with William Katt, the movie starts out with a couple whose marriage is on the wane. They're debating divorce when the get lost in the back roads of Louisiana and take directions from a shady local sheriff played by Michael Madsen. He sends them down a long shadowy dirt road in the woods littered with the car parts of previous accidents and eventually lose a tire. While looking for help, they pass the car of another stranded couple and all end up at a very sinister and practically abandoned former bed and breakfast. Leslie Easterbrook from "Police Academy" plays the matroness, the mother of a deranged son and employer of an even creepier caretaker. It seems as if its going to be the start of what's going to be a very good ghost story, but then a storm strands the guests and with him comes a madman who lurks on the roof, promising to leave them alone if someone is killed and tossed outside the door. From there, everything goes off the deep end. The mother, her son and caretaker get creepier, then there's evidence of devil worship and the guests get trapped in the catacombs of the basement reliving the details of their worst memories. Nothing ever gets explained. Is the house haunted? Are they in hell? Are they in purgatory? You just keep wondering when is something going to happen! It's got to be the most psychological blood and gore movie I've ever seen. It might as well be called "Lost" because that's what I felt watching it.
loogenhausen I didn't even realize this was a Ted Dekker story until the end of the film, which explains a lot. He's also responsible for the "story" in the lame Seven knockoff cleverly titled "Three". He also writes Christian horror, whatever the hell that means. Michael Madsen is usually a recipe for disaster in any movie not titled Reservoir Dogs, and he screws it up here as well. Apparently Christian horror is about as effective as Christian rock. It looks like horror, kinda smells like horror, but it's not really horror. I'm not too religious myself, but being a Christian doesn't mean you have to stomach half-baked garbage like this just because it's written by someone who touts himself as a Christian writer. It's like liking those horrifyingly bad Left Behind books. Don't excuse bad writing just because the writer is a Christian. That's weak sauce. Use your head, people. There is also no reason for this to be rated R whatsoever. I can't remember any swearing and there was hardly any blood considering all the death in the film. There's an interesting concept in the flick somewhere but it gets lost in the shoddy camera-work and hit-or-miss acting that proves everyone involved is not quite ready for prime time. It gets one extra star for the awesome Bill Moseley, though he's wasted in this disappointing wanna-be horror film. Ted Dekker and Dan Brown should get together. Maybe between them they might be able to come up with a fully-functioning story. I said might...
Justin Bailey I have to say...the cinematographer of this film should never work with film again. It looks like MAYBE 50% of the film was shot on 35mm while all the inserts and a few "action sequences" were filmed on digital in very low lighting. It looks like they didn't bother white-balancing the digital DV cameras, because there's horrible video gain in a good portion of the film. The color's of the lighting are completely inconsistent and look like they serve no story-driving purpose. Randomly people will be green or yellow or orange, and it changes all the time. The only reason I could think of that someone would do that, is if they were trying to make the view uncomfortable. In reality, the feeling i got was annoyed. The DP, also seemed to not know what a hair-light, kicker, back-light, etc. are because there seems to be almost a total lack of one in almost every shot. Needless to say, the lighting as well as the ridiculous camera angles and unnecessary, obsession with rack focusing unnecessarily, completely destroyed this film for me.Which, was sad, because i'll be honest the acting (which usually is what ruins a film) wasn't half bad. So, we know the director wasn't a total knob. The editing left something to be desired, though, the constant jump cuts of inserts could work if they were used only once or twice, but 5x in every scene is just annoying and excessive.I couldn't sit through the whole thing personally, and that has only happened with 4 films out of hundreds I've seen.
zfiany I love all kinds of movies but horror movies come first and this movie is definitely not a horror. One thing good about the movie is that it makes you think about good and evil. There is something smart about the plot but doesn't really need an Einstein to understand it. However, since the majority didn't really understand the house and asked for a development of the history of the house!, I find it only logical to explain that the house is supposed to be a transitory station between death and life after. During that transitional time, the person is supposed to win the struggle between evil and good by repaying for his/her sins. This explains the presence of the little girl who tries to save the good couple and the cop and his family didn't kill her before.That part of the story was the only good element about it. The acting was poor, the horror didn't exist at all, and all in all the movie is not really a good experience especially for horror fans.