Samantha is a college student eager to escape the misery of dorm living by renting her own place, the only problem being she lacks the necessary finances. She replies to an ad for a baby sitting job and after an aborted attempt eventually gets the job. When she arrives at the client’s house its all a bit odd. She is met by the peculiar Mr Ulman (Tom Noonan on fine and sinister form) who explains the baby sitting job is not what it seems and he in fact requires someone to stay in the house with his elderly mother while he and his wife attend to some important matters. She reluctantly agrees, not realising that the Ulmans have other plans for how her night is going to play out.
It’s a slow burning tale with a careful, gentle build up culminating in a last act that is tense and startling. Its a pleasure to watch a horror film, particularly an American one, that is not afraid to take its time to build the atmosphere. The girl, seemingly alone in a strange house, is uneasy about her predicament but tempted to stay by the promise of money. As her night progresses she realises that all is not what it at first seemed and it soon becomes obvious that there is sinister work afoot.
Mr Ulman isn’t creepy at all. Noooo, of course not. Perfectly normal…
Once the fright genie is out of the bottle the climax is a series of fairly typical but deftly executed slasher style moments. Her struggle for freedom is impressive, her decisions good ones. Especially satisfying is the way her survival instincts kick in and she defends herself well. Her bloody, eye gouging, throat slashing attempts to escape feel like a victory for the viewer because for once you aren’t screaming at the screen in an effort to prevent suicidally stupid decisions being made. It’s a subtle departure from horror convention but a satisfying one.
The whole film has been given a vintage eighties feel with muted colours and post production added graininess to help give it an authentic vibe. It is clearly a tribute to the films of the likes of Argento and Fulci, in both look and feel, and in this the film makers have succeeded admirably. The extra grain seems a tad pointless on the Blu Ray though, the effect appearing grossly out of place and looking bizarrely sharp due to the heightened definition. It may well have been more sensible to dispense with it entirely for the Blu Ray transfer but its a minor complaint with an otherwise excellent looking film. There are a handful of minor anachronistic issues over the course of the film too, most notably the sound of a distant, very modern sounding car alarm in the background of one scene which threatens to shatter the illusion but they more or less get away with it and to be honest the story is engaging enough that it doesn’t matter.
Samantha has enough sense to know that if she really must go exploring a spooky house in the dark, she should get tooled up first…
Spawned from the mind of Ti West, one of the figures at the crest of the new wave of horror film makers, The House Of The Devil is an excellent introduction to his particular style of film, where character and atmosphere take priority over cheap theatrics or genre conventions and where he rewards viewers’ patience with spectacular pay-offs, a technique he also uses to great effect in The Innkeepers (which is also well worth watching). His work in Cabin Fever 2 (a rare breed indeed, being a horror sequel that surpasses the original) and the anthology film The ABCs Of Death are also well worth checking out.
Highland Fidelity 