The House of the Devil (2009) Directed by Ti West
Oh Netflix, what did I ever do without you? You bring so many good and awful movies to me with the click of a button. Along with the world of podcasts, Netflix has expanded my horizons of movie watching. Side note: If you are looking for a few good podcasts to listen to for horror, listen to SlasherCast, Krueger Nation, and the newly formed Jack and Nick Horror Show, all are great. Ok back to my swooning, I was looking around Netflix the other day during my lunch and found House of the Devil. Slashercast did a review of it and they said a lot of positive things, plus its Ti West and I have seen The Innkeepers, and greatly enjoyed that. I watched a half hour of this movie during lunch then finished it when I got home. If anyone has read my blog, you know my love for anything 80s. Even though this isn’t an 80s movie, it is set in the 80s and has a great feel to it.
Samantha Hughes visits a house she’s looking to rent; she meets with the landlady and decides she will take it. Soon after this scene she begins searching for a job. Sam stumbles across a posting for a babysitting job and takes a number. She calls the number on the flyer and talks to an odd man that says he’ll meet her on campus. Sam goes and waits for the man but he never arrives. The next scene she meets with her friend Megan to go get pizza. They talk for a bit and Megan offers to take down the flyers so no one shows up to babysit for the guy. The man calls her dorm phone, apologizes, and offers double the original pay. Sam and Megan ride out the house, while Megan expresses her distrust of the situation.
They arrive at the house and enter. Mr. Ullman expresses that he does not in fact have children, and apologizes for misleading the girl. He tells Sam that the babysitting job is for his ailing mother. Sam decides she is not going to take the job, until Ullman offers her $400 to do it. She accepts the amount and Megan quickly leaves citing Ullman’s lies and odd behavior, alas she offers to pick her up after the job is done. Ok quick side bar here…Mr. Ullman is creepy as shit, so why in the hell would a gorgeous girl like Sam make that decision? Also Megan is smart at first by being cautious, but then just bails on her friend in a stranger’s house. Megan drives off and stops to have a smoke, her lighter isn’t working and a bearded dude pops up, scares her and lights her smoke. The man asks her if she’s the babysitter, Megan says no, and the man splatters her brains on the windshield with a gun. This part got my attention; I totally did not see that coming. Also the guy looked a lot like my neighbor, which was at bit scary haha.
Sam orders pizza and puts on her headphones, listening to her Walkman. She accidentally breaks a vase whilst dancing. She cleans up the mess and discovers a cupboard with old family pictures. She sees in one picture a Volvo that her and Megan saw before pulling up to the house. Also in a picture there is a young son, that Ullman expressed earlier their son was fully-grown. She comes to the conclusion that they must have murdered the original owners of the house and stole their car. In panic she dials 911, but quickly hangs up. They call back and she explains it was an accident, that everything is alright. The pizza man shows up and it’s my neighbor that shot Megan. Drugs in the pizza cause Sam to pass out, just as she finds someone moving behind a door upstairs.
When she wakes up she is tied to a pentagram and gagged. As the lunar eclipse begins to develop, the Ullman’s along with my neighbor, actually their son Victor, start a satanic ritual. The ailing mother is a grotesque, ugly, witchlike figure, and she draws a pentagram on Sam’s belly. Then mother grabs what looks to be a goat skull or something, and slices her wrist, allowing blood to flow into the skull. She raises the skull to Sam’s mouth and forces her to drink the blood. Sam breaks loose halfway through and stabs Mr. Ullman with a dagger. She runs into the kitchen and discovers Megan’s body complete with gaping face wound, if you can call it a face anymore. She scampers upstairs and is shot by Victor, he moves in for the headshot, when she grabs a knife and slits his throat. Victor bleeds out and dies, Mrs. Ullman stumbles across his body and searches for Sam. Sam has horrific demonic images flashing in her head. Mrs. Ullman finds her upstairs and talks about the eclipse standing in the window looking out, Sam suddenly stabs her in the back with the knife, grabs the gun and runs downstairs. Mr. Ullman chases after Sam, and they end up in a cemetery nearby. Ullman says she was chosen, Sam aims the gun at him and he claims that it is too late, that he is a messenger and he accepts his fate. She quickly grabs the gun and shoots herself in the head to Ullman’s horror. The scene cuts and a news segment comes on about strange occurrences during the eclipse. Samantha is shown in a hospital bed, unconscious, when a nurse enters, pats Sam’s stomach and says “you will be ok, the both of you.” Then the movie comes to an end.
Satanic Cult movies are always great. This is much like Rosemary’s Baby in the way that the girl is impregnated with a demon offspring. The dark tones of this movie are awesome, and I’m not sure if it was just Netflix or the movie itself, but the film was grainy and felt like a cheap 80s movie. Even the credits look very 70s or 80s. The acting was excellent, Jocelin Donahue did a great job as Samantha, and I thought she was cuter than hell. Mr. Ullman was really creepy, not so much a sinister style of creepy but more of the creepy that a priest can have, where they are just so soft spoken and kind of awkward that it just makes you uncomfortable. I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one that has ever found catholic priests kind of creepy haha. The flashes shown of demonic images and faces after the ritual are genuinely terrifying. When mother forces Sam to drink the blood it made me want to barf. This uses a unique sense of atmosphere that is commonly lost in movies from today; it doesn’t use large amounts of gore to be scary. The shadows, creaky old house and lingering camera shots create a unsettling presence. If you love the 80s style of movies, and an awesome assortment of bitchin’ 80s tunes, watch this movie! If you enjoy satanic cults impregnating college girls with demon fetuses, then you are kind of messed up, you might want to get help, but watch this movie first. I give House of the Devil a B+. The acting is great, atmosphere is great, but I feel like the chase scenes could’ve been more tense and I was hoping for more bat shit crazy scenes that what were presented. With a budget of only $90,000 it did a great job capturing my attention and creeping me out.
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