Jared Midwood Keep in mind that I watched House having already read the book by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti. In keeping with what reviewers have already said, the book was exponentially better; it was truly terrorizing, and well-paced with fantastic memorable characters. Frankly put, it was one of the best books I have read and probably one of the top 5 killer thrillers of all time. The spiritual message was also strong and unambiguous. But this is not a review on the book, so moving on ...To be fair, House the movie never had a chance of succeeding since it was crippled by the typical Christian movie low budget. It achieved slightly more than the dreadful Left Behind films, but was much worse than recent religious movies such as God's Not Dead and even Dekker's other famous movie Thr3e.The story of house is horrific and not for the squeamish, but this real terror never came through in the movie. It is not even that scary. The R rating is absolutely absurd; it could have passed for PG if it had come about via mainstream Hollywood. There is no blood, sex, and the only curse is "hell" once. What is the R for? Apparently pure shock value.Michael Madsen is wasted as the psychopathic Tin Man. In the book the killer - otherwise known as Barsidious White - is a terrifying madman and one of the most memorable modern literary villains. But in the movie he is just corny. The mask is horrendously done, his jerky movements are humorous, and the stupid voice overs are reminiscent of a low budget Indie horror flick. The Tin Man never really gets going, and his dialogue is forced and stale.The members of the house are fairly scary, although Betty is a bit stereotypical. Pete makes a decent sex pervert chasing after one of the refugees, and Bill Moseley's excellent performance as Stewart is responsible for at least 2 of the 4 stars I gave the movie.The travelers themselves are fairly lame, although they look the part. As soon as Randy opens his mouth you can tell he is a soap opera dufus. Jack and Stephanie are too attractive to be taken seriously, and Leslie would be a good actor if it weren't for her perpetual cheesy grin. The acting by all four ultimately falls flat.Susan, the angel trapped in the house who ultimately sacrifices her life for the good of the others, is a bright spot about halfway through the movie. True, she is too cute to be taken seriously as a victim of a deranged serial killer, but she plays the part well and is probably the strongest character in the movie besides Stewart. The depth of her sacrifice is not lost on the movie's viewers, even in the midst of the tragically bad filmmaking.The music in the movie is pretty good, but the actual visual effects are pretty lame and the quality of the picture is not so hot. The dialogue falls into soap opera cheesiness at times, but for the most part it is not horrible. The plot is based loosely on the book but is not always representative of the ideals Peretti and Dekker were trying to convey. God is not mentioned much, if at all, and the spiritual side of the story is missing. Keep in mind that the Hollywood depravity of most horror thrillers is also missing, refreshingly.Perhaps this movie would have been better if the directors and producers had not deviated so much from the plot of the novel, and if they had maintained the spiritual aspect of the narrative. The book was dynamic, the movie falls short.Labelled as a horror movie, House is not so much horror as it is blandly scary. The producers throw in some pentagrams and 666's for good measure, but even the Satanism of the house's inhabitants is not that scary. It just seems silly. Without spoiling the outcome of the movie, there is also a fair amount of bloodless killing, but it is somewhat expected and not that shocking.One aspect of the movie I enjoyed was the LOST-esque flashbacks to the "sins" of the four characters. Melissa's death is heart-wrenching, and the revelation that Leslie was raped by her uncle elicits some sympathy for her character. At least the brass behind the movie got this film technique right.Overall, House is not a bad movie, but it is not an especially good one. It falls a tad flat for the most part, but it is worth a watch. Go into it not expecting much, and you should get at least some mild enjoyment out of it. The younger you watch it the more you will like it. And the less experienced of a horror fan you are the more scared you will be.To borrow the story's catchphrase, the only way out is in ...

Scarecrow-88 Reynaldo Rosales and Heidi Dippold are an estranged couple heading to a marriage counselor in Montgomery, Alabama, when they take the advice of a police officer(Michael Madsen)in regards to a shortcut(never a good idea by horror movie standards), coming across a metal part in the middle of the road that blows out the front tires. Rosales and Dippold notice, while trekking by foot for help, a car seemingly abandoned on the same road as the one they had the flat and wonder if the occupants are somewhere nearby. They find an old house not far from the road as the rain begins to fall, not to mention, the couple whose car Rosales and Dippold saw, J.P. Davis & Julie Ann Emery. The two couples encounter a family of weirdos inside the house, believing they live there(Leslie Easterbrook, Lew Temple(barely recognizable), and Bill Moseley). At first the family seem somewhat civil, offering supper and shelter, but soon they start rambling on about a dangerous menace known as "The Tin Man" and when he does appear, Easterbrook seals everyone in the house, tensions and heated emotions escalating until the two couples are at odds with the trio--soon characters begin to separate trying to find a way out. But as the four move deeper within the house they encounter horrors from the past which are just as troubling as the crazed family trying to kill them. This is one of those movies where characters revisit sins from the past, dealing with pure evil and stuck in the precarious situation of having to contend with the idea of never leaving "the house", a symbolic version of hell, the "tin man" something like the devil. Rosales and Dippold lost a daughter who drowned in a lake while ice skating, both so wrapped up in their own careers(he a writer, her a wannabe singer) ignoring her and paying a devastating price for it. Emery was the victim of childhood sexual abuse by her uncle. Davis accidentally killed his father, as a child ridiculed by pops for the inability to kill a deer while hunting when he had the animal in his sights. We all know that Rob Zombie veterans, Easterbrook, Temple, and Moseley, were cast for their name recognition, portraying Depression era misfits who terrorize the two couples, while rambling endlessly about how they were responsible for bringing the tin man to the house. It seems the trio want to kill the tin man, but soon they are hunting the two couples and the house seems to function as some sort of limbo where those who are on the cusp of death must each face traumatic events which tormented them in life, Rosales and Dippold have to witness afresh their daughter's death(she appears just out of reach, calling out to them), and the events leading to that awful loss. Davis must endure the incident with his cruel father while Emery is the lust object of Temple(perhaps a reminder of her pedophile uncle), a mentally slow creep who wants her all to himself. Easterbrook unleashes her usual histrionics, wielding an ax, mad eyes, the whole bit. Moseley is a disgruntled and haggard louse, hostile from the moment he appears on screen. Madsen is as enigmatic as ever, and you just know from his first scene that something sinister lies behind his smirk as he gives the couple directions which leads them into a terrifying scenario where survival seems grim. The film also includes a bullet-ridden can containing a directive to the couple, one must die so the others can escape the wrath of the tin man. A mysterious girl named Susan appears to Rosales, obviously dead since her face is white and she has darkened circles under her eyes, perhaps the angel to the tin man's devil, trying to warn the two couples from following down the dark path which would lead to their destruction.

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.

SleepyRiver I rented this film' after reading the back and looking at the cover and sort of 'panic renting', you know, when you've been in the vid rental shop for ages and still cant find anything you want, so you pick up one that looks OK, well I took it to the counter and as I said the guy looked at me with a smirk. I should have known and he should have warned me, in fact there should be a warning sticker on the DVD case saying " STOP. BEFORE WATCHING THIS MOVIE REMOVE YOUR EYES AND BRAIN". OMFG, this is so bad, my wife wanted to divorce me half way through this, please ignore anyones comments that say this title is 'ok' or 'not bad' or 'watchable', its not its awful, the characters are just stupid and the story is pathetic. We kept watching in disbelief just to see how bad it could get, if any story would happen, if it could sort of pull itself back from the edge, but no, it didn't. For most part of the movie the main characters are wandering around in tunnels, they cant get out and then they wander and then they cant get out. Was sh*te.