House of the Devil

Coming soon!

Cast:



Jocelin Donahue as Samantha



Tom Noonan as Mr. Ulman



Mary Woronov as Mrs. Ulman



Greta Gerwig as Megan



A.J. Bowen as Victor Ulman

Directed by Ti West

Review:

Spoiler free.

The less one knows about Ti West’s The House of the Devil – its inferno of a finale, in particular – the better.

Avoid YouTubing the trailer, which only tempts toggling back to pause on its almost subliminal flashes. These insane images scream to be first seen on the big screen, in a dark, preferably packed theater, with Jeff Grace’s driving synth score throttling your nerves. If you’re lucky like me, you might get a cathartic laugh hearing a grown man in the audience mutter a breathless “what… the… f*ck” at the sight of a doppelganger for the old witch in Disney’s Snow White, poisoned apple replaced by a hollowed-out goat skull, brimming with blood.

Here’s what should be known about this wicked little film, which I caught at its sold-out Tribeca Film Festival premiere: this is old school, slow burn, psychological horror at its finest and freakiest. And although set in 1983 (meaning no modern horror refrain of, “I don’t have reception – do you have reception?!”), there are no kitschy references or in-jokes, no movie theater marquee advertising Amityville 3-D, The Beyond or Cujo (although Dee Wallace does cameo pre-opening credits). The period is tapped as a source of horror, not humor, as the Eighties were the days of “satanic panic,” when news anchors and talk show hosts were abuzz about the possibility of devil worshippers next door, and suicides induced by heavy metal. Of course, like the horror stories that swirled around Halloween candy, none of it was true. The fact that none of it was proven false either is what West homes in on.

The set-up is simple, and the heroine’s plight one many can empathize with right now. Strapped for cash, with the due date on her new apartment’s rent looming near, college sophomore Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue, The Burrowers) finds salvation in the form of a cryptic flyer posted on campus. “Baby $itter Needed,” it reads. Money is what Samantha needs, desperately, and it’s going to take more than a couple of ominous phone conversations with the strange man who posted the ad to deter her. Night falls – the night of a much-heralded lunar eclipse, no less – and Megan (Baghead‘s Greta Gerwig), Samantha’s quirky, quippy best friend, drives her out to the family’s sprawling country home. There they are greeted by the monolith of a man that is Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan, Manhunter, The Monster Squad). He gradually confesses the exact nature of the babysitting gig, and circumstances go from awkward to bizarre. Samantha is still game, agreeing to stay for a higher rate. Megan leaves in a huff, set to return at 1 AM to give Samantha a ride home… that is, if Megan survives stopping for a smoke at a nearby cemetery.

What unfolds once Samantha is alone in the old dark house is an exercise in mood, atmosphere and mounting tension. For much of the runtime, Ti West eschews clichÈ and emulates nothing less than Roman Polanski’s “apartment trilogy” (Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant), birthing madness out of the mundane. Events as simple as the accidental shattering of a vase and the shorting out of a light bulb are effective jolts of terror. As staged by West – and performed by Donahue – none of these moments are indicative of a lazy filmmaker going for cheap jump-scares, but of a character growing increasingly unnerved. The audience jumps right along with Samantha, fearing the worst when the doorbell rings, just as repulsed by what’s in the bathtub, and wondering who or what those fingers curling around the doorjamb are attached to.

They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Well, West does, as anyone who as has seen his brooding midnight movie The Roost, can attest. Genre fans sick of assembly line horror being edited, paced and lit to look like summer action movies will find plenty to relish in The House of the Devil (whose wonderfully bold, no BS title which will hopefully never be confused with Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead, by anyone, ever.) Shot on 16mm, on location in rural Connecticut, the film feels grounded in realism, making the violent crescendo in the house’s basement all that much more terrifying. While the last ten minutes or so are indeed a blood-drenched, phantasmagoric ride, shades of Suspiria and the original Wicker Man, they are also a bit disappointing in their familiarity. When Samantha grapples with the villains, it could just as easily be Neve Campbell facing down Ghostface in a Scream sequel. Her initial escape is comedic in its ease – perhaps intentionally, but why, when the rest of the movie is so straight-faced and sincere? Samantha’s captors, their true selves finally revealed, should be at their most terrifying here, and yet they commit blunders that immediately drain considerable tension from what jarringly started as an intense, what-the-hell-am-I-witnessing scene. Thankfully, much is redeemed in the final moments with a chilling revelation, so the few faults in the last stretch can be overlooked, especially since the majority of the film is artful and intelligent, crackling with superb performances.

No one in the cast approaches the material as “just a horror movie.” As Samantha, Jocelin Donahue carries the narrative with aplomb. She’s not a spray-tanned starlet from some CW show, but a timeless beauty with real chops, recalling the work done in classic thrillers by Olivia Hussey, Mia Farrow, and, yes, Audrey Hepburn. Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov (going from regal to rabid as Mrs. Ulman) remind us why they are icons. Their collective presence is unnerving as they dwarf Donahue, black cloaking their statuesque frames, enunciating every syllable with icy precision. With limited screen time, A.J. Bowen (The Signal) brings live-wire menace to his role. Greta Gerwig has the tough task of breathing life into a horror heroine’s best friend, so often a stock character, but she and West, who also wrote the screenplay, subvert the tropes to deliver something real.

For younger viewers weaned on the recent crop of remakes, The House of the Devil will likely be an endurance test. Fans of intelligent, artful genre films should seek this one out and savor it.