Style vs. Substance in The House of The Devil

Having been bombarded with hype-filled reviews, I went into THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL with high expectations. Unfortunately, I came away from the film feeling as disappointed as I felt after watching Oren Peli's over-hyped PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (which may have worked as a short film that took place over three nights, but was simply excruciating at feature length).

Ti West undeniably captured the look, sound and feel of indie horror films from the late '70s and early '80s. It's too bad that a lot of reviewers seem to have been so overcome with the film's style that they neglected to point out how little substance the film has. I guess I should have known better, given the trend in recent years where film analysis is being replaced with how a film either appeals to or offends a reviewer's sense of nostalgia in what are supposed to be film reviews.

When a reviewer has to qualify his or her review by dismissing people who didn't like the film with derogatory, uninformed generalizations about their intelligence, taste or attention spans, this is a strong indicator that the review is based upon nostalgia rather than the film's merits and flaws.

Other warning signs include the use of the term "throwback," or suggesting that a film is only for "true horror fans."

If you want to write a love letter to a filmmaker because he or she appealed to your love of slow, grainy horror films, fine. Pretending that this is the same thing as a film review is an insult to people who are trying to figure out whether or not they should invest their time and money going to the theater to see a film.

THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL starts with a clichéd "based upon true events" warning. We then learn that Samantha (played by Jocelin Donahue) is a "nice girl" - not because she actually does anything nice, but because Dee Wallace tells her (and the audience) that she has a "gut feeling." To further drive this point home, Samantha is contrasted with her roommate Heather. When Sam gets to her dorm room, she's greeted by the sounds of Heather having sex. Despite Sam's knocking on the door and saying, "It's morning," she fails to get a response, and leaves.

Sam then disregards every obvious sign that she shouldn't take a job babysitting at THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. When she calls about the job from a payphone, she leaves her dorm room's phone number, yet her prospective employer, Mr. Ulman (played by Tom Noonan) immediately calls her back at the payphone. Being set in the early 1980s, I'm pretty sure that this story takes place prior to *69. Even if this isn't the case, we'll see later on that there are only rotary phones in THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. After failing to meet Sam on campus, Mr. Ulman calls her dorm room and offers her $100 if she'll babysit for four hours that night. Despite his stating that "he'll make this as painless for her as possible" she inexplicably takes the job anyway.

I understand what it's like being strapped for cash, but this is ridiculous.

While driving Sam to THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, her friend Megan (played by Greta Gerwig) makes fun of people's interest in the evening's upcoming lunar eclipse. She even says, "It's not like the moon's going to explode - though that would be pretty cool."

Seriously, she says that.

It's astounding to me that some of the same reviews praising this film come from people who typically complain about unsympathetic characters and bad dialogue in other modern horror films. They also commonly complain about how predictable horror films have become, even though anyone who's seen ROSEMARY'S BABY can predict where this film is going. Even the twist ending feels like a cheat - much more so than the ending of HIGH TENSION, which is a film I refuse to apologize for liking. Again, many of the same critics who feel that the ending of HIGH TENSION ruined that film seem to be in love with THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL.

Perhaps - as they used to say in the movies - there are some things that man isn't meant to understand.

During Megan and Sam’s long drive to THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, we see that the Ulmans unsurprisingly live in a secluded, wooded area, just past a cemetery. Reaching their destination, Mr. Ulman explains that he lied about having a child, and Sam will actually be babysitting his elderly mother-in-law. Sam is initially reluctant, so he increases his offer to $200 and then $300 for the night. In a bold display of both greed and willingness to take advantage of someone's desperation, she demands $400 - which he agrees to.

Even Megan - who previously said that IT WOULD BE COOL IF THE MOON EXPLODED - points out that this is far beyond a bad idea. Defying all logic, Sam points out that $400 for four hours is "too good to be true" as an argument in favor of taking the job rather than getting the hell out of there (pun intended).

We’re roughly one-third of the way through the film before Megan leaves her friend at THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Roughly 38 minutes into the film, we finally get a brief, bloody act of violence, followed by almost another 37 minutes of Sam wandering around THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. She unsuccessfully tries to get Megan on the phone a few times, dances around the house with her headphones on, plays pool, looks at some photos in the bottom of a closet, eats some bad pizza and seemingly opens dozens of doors all over the house.

She also turns on the TV briefly, just long enough for a newscaster to tell the audience that the moon should be fully eclipsed just around midnight - half an hour before she asked Megan to pick her up.

After 75 minutes, it seems like the film is finally going to reward the audience's patience with blood sacrifices, stabbings, shootings, and the long-awaited chase through the cemetery. Ten minutes later, Sam does the first unexpected thing in the entire film, though it's only unexpected because there doesn't seem to be any reason why she would think to do what she does.

This is followed by a twist ending that quite simply falls flat. If it were up to me, I would have ended the film 5 minutes earlier.

Then again, I wouldn't have dragged out the first 75 minutes either.

Thirst Is A Better Vampire Film Than Let The Right One In

It seemed that shortly after seeing it, a very vocal majority of critics, reviewers, bloggers and podcasters jumped on the "LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) is the best vampire and/or horror film in years/decades/history" bandwagon.

Not only did I disagree, I argued that it's not even a horror film, and not much of a vampire film either. In response, I was accused of being attention deficit; of feeling that it was "too good" to be a horror film; and of having no idea what I was talking about.

Ironically, all of these accusations came from people who don't know me, and thus had no idea what they were talking about. That aside, it's even easier to dismiss these accusations than it was for these people to dismiss me and my opinions.

People who are no more qualified to recognise ADHD than they are any other medical condition should stop embarrassing themselves with these pop-psychology diagnoses. They should really re-think themselves before accusing people they don't even know of having no idea what they're talking about.

As for being "too good" to be a horror film, I don't even know how this makes sense, as I feel genre is identified by tropes, not quality (or a lack thereof). For example, Park Chan-Wook's THIRST (2009) is a film about a vampire - unlike LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is about a boy who gets picked on at school and has a strained relationship with his divorced parents. He meets a girl who encourages him stand up to the bullies at school - before she runs away from home (leaving him behind). Ultimately, she returns to help him fight off the bullies, and they run away together. There's also a sub-plot about the girl being a vampire, but that's not what the film is about - it's merely a complication in this boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl story.

In other words, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN isn't "too good" to be a horror movie, it's a coming-of-age/pre-teen romance that happens to have a vampire in it, and I don't feel this makes it a horror movie any more than I feel this book is a horror anthology:

In contrast, THIRST is a film about a priest who becomes a vampire, and how his newfound urges - due to his vampirism - cause him to do things that go against every belief he's held sacred during his entire life. Vampirism is not incidental to the film's primary throughline, nor is it used as window dressing. THIRST has all of the atmosphere, suspense, self-sacrifice, betrayal, pathos and - most importantly - horror that one expects from the best the genre has to offer.

Quite simply, THIRST is easily the best vampire film in at least a decade - and probably longer.

In Defense Of CGI

I found this short on Vimeo.com, and can't imagine how it could have been filmed without CGI.


Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo.

There's also a "Making of..." video available, just to show how much of the short was CG.


Making Of Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo.

The Blair Witch Project Revisited

Brian Solomon (of the deservedly acclaimed blog The Vault of Horror) recently posted his Top 10 Most OVERRATED Horror Movies, with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT in the #1 spot.

If anything, it should be #1 on the Top 10 Most ACCUSED Horror Movies list.

It's been accused of not having an ending.

Nearly all of the footage was shot by the actors, except for the interview segments with this character.

Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez specifically shot these segments in order to explain the film's ending.

"He (Rustin Parr) took the kids down into the basement by twos. He made one face in the corner, and then he would kill the other one. When he was done with that, he'd grab the one out of the corner and kill that one too."

To everyone who complains about how modern films are "dumbed down" and/or lack subtlety, blame people who make accusations about films they can't be bothered paying attention to, not filmmakers who've learned Myrick and Sanchez's mistake of over-estimating audiences.

It's been accused of "ripping off" CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and THE LAST BROADCAST.

(In an interesting bit of synchronicity, it's recently been announced that Eli Roth is producing a "Faux Documentary" horror film called THE LAST EXORCISM.)

Essentially...

• THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is the story of three people who disappear after going into the woods to make a documentary, and is told through the use of pseudo-"found footage".
• THE LAST BROADCAST is the story of three people who disappear after going into the woods to make a "live" public access broadcast, and is told through the use of pseudo-"found footage".
• CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST is the story of a film crew who disappear after going into the jungle to make a documentary, and is told through the use of pseudo-"found footage".

But...

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is told exclusively through it's "found footage" (and some title cards) - much like later films CLOVERFIELD and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY - and unlike CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST and THE LAST BROADCAST. With that, I've never seen anyone accuse THE LAST BROADCAST of "ripping off" CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, presumably because it's more fashionable to throw rocks at successes than failures.

It's been accused of being inferior to THE LAST BROADCAST.

One of THE LAST BROADCAST's major flaws is that it's presented as a pseudo-documentary that stops being a pseudo-documentary 10 minutes before the film ends. Even if THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT had no ending, it would still be better than THE LAST BROADCAST's finale (which makes the ending of HIGH TENSION seem Hitchcockian in comparison).

Given it's lack of script (the actors ad-libbed their parts based upon general directions left at their campsite each day by Myrick and Sanchez), THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is a surprisingly structured film, which I suppose is a testament to the filmmakers' editing skills.

During THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT's 81 minute running time...

• In the first 8 minutes, the main characters AND the film's backstory are established. At this point, the interviews are completed and the crew are on the road towards the woods (Turning point #1).
• Around the 20 minute mark, we see the first fight over the map / being lost in the woods (Turning point #2).
• Around the 40 minute mark, Mike admits to kicking the map into the creek (Turning point #3).
• Around the 61 minute mark, Josh disappears (Turning point #4).
• Around the 72 minute mark, we see what is arguably the film's most iconic scene.

This is followed by Mike and Heather running towards what appears to be Josh's screams in the distance (Turning point #5).

While the film admittedly has no "Aftermath", I don't see how tacking one on would have "fixed" what wasn't broken to begin with.

Contrast this with THE LAST BROADCAST, which has no characters and no suspense - just stereotypes going through the motions in order to broadcast the filmmakers' message (pun intended) - and then explain to me how THE LAST BROADCAST is the superior film.

Put another way, is Black Christmas (1974) better than Halloween (1978) solely because it was a prior "holiday slasher"? Is Reazione A Catena (a.k.a. Bay of Blood / Twitch of the Death Nerve, 1971) better than both films solely because it was a prior "first-person slasher"? Other than some people's apparent need for a film to have a "message", I have no other explanation why some people feel that THE LAST BROADCAST is a superior film.

If Myrick and Sanchez took anything from THE LAST BROADCAST, it's how NOT to make a low-budget "found footage" film.

It's been accused of being a film not worth seeing once you know it's not a "real" found footage film.

On one hand, I'd argue that it's a "semi"-found footage film, since the footage wasn't scripted like in THE LAST BROADCAST, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, CLOVERFIELD and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. While Myrick and Sanchez gave their actors general directions, they had no guarantee there'd be a movie to be "found" once they edited the footage shot by the actors.

On the other hand, when you watch a film like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD or A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, you're implicitly making a deal with the filmmaker to buy into the reality of the film - at which point it's up to the filmmaker not to break that deal (like in the final 10 minutes of THE LAST BROADCAST).

If you go into THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT accepting the "pseudo-reality" of the film, it holds up to multiple viewings as well as any other film.

It's been accused of making people nauseous through it's use of "shaky-cam".

Similarly, some kids suffered from seizures while watching Pokemon, while a lot of people didn't. If it's any consolation, in the DVD commentary track it's stated that the original cut of the film was two-and-a-half hours long, and they cut out a lot of the "shaky-cam" due to this test audience's response.

In exchange for showing movie theaters that America was ready for real horror films - as opposed to post-modern teen-horror flicks like SCREAM and I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER - I find it hard to believe that anyone would consider THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT "overrated".