Title: The house of the devil
Year: 2009
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Director: Ti West
Writer: Ti West
Runtime: 95min
Cast: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan,
Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig, AJ Bowen, Dee Walace
Produc.: MPI Media Group,
Constructovision, RingTheJing Entertainment, Glass Eye Pix
Two years ago I saw Alien Trespass
(2009), a science fiction title where an extraterrestrial being took control of
a human body, with the intention of conquering the Earth. Then, a few days ago
I saw The house of the devil (2009), a horror film where a young college
student was deceived and used for a ritual. Although completely different from each
other, both shared to have paid tribute to a much former cinema.
To honor in this business has
always been very common, as with the Cecil B. Demille award given to
celebrities for their lifetime achievement. But luckily this doesn’t only happen in such circumstances,
being the nods that some directors make to their fellowmen, putting some else’s
words in the mouth of their own characters, replicating their aesthetics and
even their camera approaches. Any of these options would work, unless, like Ti
West, they choose to completely trace a style, rather than just taking certain
things.
If at its time it had already happened
to R. W. Goodwin’s Alien Trespass, that this were now to happen to The house of
the devil would only confirm it: these men had misunderstood what was to pay
homage.
I can’t know it for sure, because
both could have been made only on request. I want, however, to believe that
both Goodwin and West felt, in fact, a strong attachment to their projects.
Inspired to going back to that movies, today distant and boring, but great before,
and from which they would both nourish.
Yet, if was West had sought to
demonstrate was that the past is not forgotten, certainly to accurately copy what
he’d seen in his childhood was not exactly recommended. I can already imagine
how many who hate remakes wont probably even notice that The house of the devil
is nearly one, blinded by their admiration to a cinema they praise, while they
criticize the current one without much criteria. It’s very common to idolize
the past, while the present is destroyed.
From the credits design to the
close-ups on the characters, Ti West wouldn’t leave anything to chance, trying
to recreate the style of the seventies-eighties terror, and even rolling in 16
millimeters for the texture. Having us seen it without any knowledge of its
director or its cast we might have thought that this movie was from that era.
In The house of devil, young
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) comes across a babysitter request that will run her
into the mysterious, liar and dangerous Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan). This will
receive her at his home, where he plays the needy and varies in his lies, while
convinces her of that, whatever it may cost, that night her presence is required.
Sticking, without variants, to the
honoree style, West would forget to include a personal and different touch. Between
Samantha speaks to Ulman on the phone, goes to do her job and discovers the
real reason of her stay, nothing happens that one wouldn’t be able to see in
any film from the ones made at that time. The house of the devil would end up
been an unnecessary clone, only justifiable if it were to be an exercise of setting,
done by students at a film school.
A girl taking care of someone who
never sees, a house which hides a terrible secret and a couple with diabolical
plans are part of a plot that, given its characteristic suspense only barely sustains
itself and for a while, meanwhile one awaits to happen that original something
that never comes.
If hypothetically speaking, we
replaced West and the 2009 with a name and date more in line with the alluded
cinema, that The house of the devil could have pass for a distant production, I
think it means that today it has no place.
My rating:
4/10
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