House (2008) Movie Review

House is a low budget, non-bloody horror thriller that has been done much better before, but this time it has an underlying theme of forgiveness of one’s sins. Based off the novel by Ted Dekker & Frank Peretti, who are considered the Stephen King’s of Christian thrillers, the film finally gets release after spending an ample amount of time on the shelf. Though House is a little bit more reasonable that some other recent horror thrillers like Prom Night, but it still lacks a heartbeat with poor staging and cliché ridden choices.

The film opens in the rural roads of Alabama, where the young couple of Jack (Reynaldo Rosales) and Stephanie (Heidi Dippold) run into car trouble and track their way to old house that is a inn run by a creepy family which includes the innkeeper Betty (Leslie Easterbrook) and the assistant Stewart (Bill Moseley). At the inn, Jack and Stephanie meet another couple that also ran into car trouble named Randy (J.P. Davis) and Leslie (Julie Ann Emery). At the dinner table, things become stranger with the housekeepers and uncomfortable tendencies set in and as the couples attempt to leave, a killer known as “The Tin Man” is seen outside. Startled, the Betty locks up the house and accuses the couples of bringing him back. A tin can then crashes through the top of the house and has a set of rules written by the killer on it that anyone who comes into his house will be killed as he killed God, but if he is delivered one dead body that the others shall go free. After the lights conveniently go out, each of the four couple are haunted by hallucinations of their past and the killer’s demand.

Under the direction of Robby Henson, who also directed Dekker’s Thr3e, the film never slows, but muddles through on plot hole after another. The script is adapted by Rob Green from the novel, which at times becomes preachy and does have a religious undertone to it. The film really hits a wall with the arrival of a pale ghostly girl named Susan (Allana Bale), who teaches the characters that dark can be beaten by light. The supposed twists in the story are also predictable and do add to the already missing suspense of the film. Though some characters are killed, there is no gore or blood in the film and no cursing, which is questionable as to why the film is Rated R, there have been numerous PG-13 films that are worst than this in terms of terror and violence. Henson does try his best to make the film eerie at times, one moment works when Betty’s eyes turn solid black, but the film never steps out of its stagy and cliché ridden mode to ponder anything really satisfying in terms of a horror thriller.

Outside of the work of horror icon actors Leslie Easterbrook as Betty and Bill Moseley (The Devil’s Rejects) as Stewart, the acting is awful. As the main couple of Jack and Stephanie, Reynaldo Rosales and Heidi Dippold over react every scene. Michael Madsen makes an appearance as a questionable police officer named Lawdale, and he tries to take over the film with his raspy presence as usual, but he does not add hardly anything to the film.

House is finally getting released after being completed for awhile. It is odd that the film is coming out after Halloween, when that would be the prime time for it to make some money. The film is a low-budget cliché filled horror thriller that has religious undertone to it, which is welcomed, but does not mean that the film is good. Ted Dekker is a terrific author and it is not to see some of his books coming to the big scene, but perhaps he should get some better production and acting values attached, as this one results in staged and low budget fare, which is more sloppy than crisp.