The House of the Devil (2008)
The House of the Devil (2008)
Production Company: MPI Media Group presents in association with Constructovision and Ring the Jing Entertainment, a Glass Eye Pix Production
Producers: Josh Braun, Roger Kass, Larry Fessenden, Peter Phok
Executive Producers: Malik B Ali, Badie Ali, Hamza Ali, Greg Newman
Director: Ti West
Screenplay: Ti West
Cinematographer: Eliot Rockett
Editor: Ti West
Music: Jeff Grace
Production Designer: Jade Healy
Art Director: Chris Trujillo
Second Unit Director: Graham Reznick
Visual Effects: John Loughlin
Special Makeup Effects: Quantum Creation FX/Christian Beckman, Ozzy Alvarez
Hair and Makeup: Ozzy Alvarez, Danielle Noe
Sound Designer: Graham Reznick
Sound Editor: Tom Efinger
Costume Designer: Robin Fitzgerald
Stunts: Anthony Vincent
Locations: Limerock, Connecticut, Columbia University, New York
Length: 95 mins
Cast: Jocelin Donahue (Samantha), Tom Noonan (Mr Ulman) Mary Woronov (Mrs Ulman) Greta Gerwig (Megan) AJ Bowen (Victor Ulman) Dee Wallace (Landlady) Heather Robb (Roommate) Darryl Nau (Random Guy) Brenda Cooney (Nurse) Danielle Noe (Mother), Mary McCann (Elaine Cross) John Speredakos (Ted Stephen) Lena Dunham (911 Operator) Graham Reznick (Local DJ), Ti West (Favorite Teacher), Archie van Beuren (Dead Child), Nicholas Bienstock (Dead Husband), Andrea Verdura (Dead Wife), Kamen Velkovsky (Demon), William M Bradley (Blue Demon).
Synopsis: The early 1980s, student Samantha, hoping to earn enough money to move into her own apartment and away from her obnoxious shared dorm, answers an advertisement for a babysitter. Arriving at the house of the Ulman's she is told that job actually involves caring for an old lady and, after Mr and Mrs Ulman leave, Samantha's concerns grow to fear as she explores the house and slowly realizes that the family may not be the original occupants.
Review: Following troubled post-production on Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, when Lionsgate lost faith after director Ti West (The Roost) delivered something more John Waters than Eli Roth, West moved on with many of the same crew to create this, a more complete vision of his deliberately old-fashioned style of film making.
Perfectly evoking its period, from freeze-frame yellow opening titles to an enormous Sony Walkman blaring out songs by The Fixx and Greg Kihn – and with special kudos due the hair, make-up and wardrobe departments – West has gone beyond mere homage and made a true period piece that perfectly captures the Friedkin-like atmosphere of movies such as Peter Medak's The Changeling (1980), Arthur Penn's Dead of Winter (1987), and Polanski's apartment trilogy.
With zero deaths in the first 34 minutes and no real reveal of the house's demonic secret until well past the hour mark, the film has divided fans but received warm attention from critics and bloggers. The slow build though is one of the films many strengths, with a perfectly judged sense of creeping unease growing from mysteriously ringing phones and the evasive and over-familiar Ulman's, played by genre stalwarts Tom Noonan (The Monster Squad, Robocop 2, Eight Legged Freaks), Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000, Eating Raoul, Chopping Mall), and AJ Bowen (The Signal, Creepshow 3). And, once the shock and gore kicks in, it's incredibly effective, with the aforementioned glimpse of the fate of the house's original occupants being followed by one of the best jump-scares of the year.
Relative newcomer Jocelin Donahue (The Burrowers) has a lot to bear as she carries the emotional weight of the film and is in practically every scene. She plays Samantha as a nervous, barely holding-on germaphobe, who knuckle-punches payphone numbers rather than touch them with her finger tips and turns on the taps in public rest rooms to hide the sound of her sobbing. Her unfolding fear once alone in the house, as well as her goofy Walkman dance which ends with a broken vase, are perfectly judged and it would be easy to overlook this marvelously controlled performance, as well as the chalk-and-cheese contrast of Greta Gerwig's Megan, with Gerwig showing further promise previosly glimpsed in Baghead (2008)
If the film stumbles a little during it's rushed, kinetic payoff – it seems that satanists tie lousy knots and are really easy to kill – it leads to a shocking and unexpected ending and a satisfying coda which completes a film that is undoubtedly being added to many 2009 Top 10 list as we speak. It will certainly be on mine.
A self confessed "pain in the ass", West has railed against the producers trimming four minutes from the middle of the film, but is seems that the version under review is his complete cut (it includes scenes with a piano and a goldfish that he had complained were removed). Granted inly a limited cinema release, the film opens in San Francisco today (11.20.09) but is also available through amazon.com's Theatrical Rental program in both standard ($6.99) and High ($7.99) definition.
Box Office 11/2/09: Michael Jackson vs. Horror
Unsurprisingly (and some would say appropriately), Michael Jackson's This Is It took the Halloween weekend #1 position, against few new openings and several genre holdovers.
Paranormal Activity continued its outstanding run, dropping just 21.6% from last week's #1 position and adding another $16.38M to its running tally of $84.62M, which now makes it the eighth most successful supernatural horror film ever made, ahead of Poltergeist (1982), and just behind The Amityville Horror (1979).
Where the Wild Things Are kicked up less of a rumpus, dropping 58% to #5, with $5.93M, for $62.65M after three weeks and Saw VI plummeted 62.7% to the #6 spot, with a weekend take of $5.27M and a two week total of $22.53M, safely putting it in profit (against an $11M budget), if not exactly setting the box-office on fire. Meanwhile, Astro Boy limped on with $3.46M in the #7 spot, a $11.31M two-week total meaning that its Hong Kong investors are unlikely to see a return on their $65M investment, however The Stepfather remake did slightly better, down 45% with $3.40M, for $24.74M.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, took $2.80M at #9, down 51% on the same number of screens for a dismal two week total of $10.80M on a $40M budget. Last week's Amelia expanded by 250 theaters, but dropped 23% for $3M, at #10 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Zombieland, both held on with $2.74M and $2.62M respectively.
At #14, Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day opened on 68 screens, bringing in $546,687, and at #16 Halloween II expanded wider for the holiday, adding 992 sites, bringing in an additional $445,344. Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D brought in another $140,037 for a re-release total of $356,022 at #27, and at #50 Antichrist added eight screens and brought in $49,292 for a total of $156,318.
Of the remaining new releases, Ti West's The House of the Devil opened on three screens at #58, bringing in $8,398 per screen (second highest of the week), for a total of $25,195, and at #76 Jared Hess's Gentleman Broncos opened on two screens, with $5,751 each, for a total of $11,502.
Next week, Robert Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol opens, along with alien abduction drama The Fourth Kind, and Richard Kelly's The Box.
