The Houses October Built (2014)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Please don't spend money on this.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

How to best describe this movie? It's basically one of those found footage films which follows a couple of friends seeking thrills and chills, slowly revealing increasing horrors, and... ends badly for everybody.Except without much horror. If you can call a bunch of masked dudes and clowns scary.I mean seriously, the movie is supposed to be about Halloween haunts, but for some reason the filmmakers decided to go for THE MOST cliché things. Yes, haunted houses do usually rely on clichés, but the whole premise is supposed to be about a couple of people who go out of their way into the "backwoods" to find the most out-of-the-way scares. What's more baffling is that half of the film doesn't even show any scare houses. When they are shown, the scenes are so rushed and dark you can barely see anything. Most of the time you are forced to sit through uninspired banter, scenes of sleeping and eating, and at one point, visiting a strip club. Even when things start to go awry (aka being stalked by psychotic clowns), none of these people have the sense to go home. NOT ONE. And then it just ends abruptly with a rather dark ending. The tone of the ending is so off from the rest of the film, it would have been better if they just had fun with it and made it a whole lot campier.To sum it all up - Where most found-footage films rely on the unseen for a sense of foreboding, here we are given an excess of uninspired imagery, boring scares, sub par acting, and no clear direction. Oh, and that doll girl that's featured in all the trailers and posters is actually one of the few creepiest things in the film. So, extra points for her + a disturbing scene involving an organ in a fridge.

The Houses October Built is another found-footage movie that's documenting a number of haunted house attractions until they visit the scariest one out there, but then realized that they're being followed by the actors of the attractions. This could be a solid concept for a fun horror schlock and to be fair the costumes of these strange people can be creepy. Even to this day, we tend to admire this practical horror, but the problem immediately lies on the technique. It never works, the camera tries its hardest to be inept, because ineptitude equals realism, apparently. But its incoherence is what makes this supposed simple horror film thoroughly unwatchable, no matter what commentary they try to put through, it still makes no sense.The opening and some moments, probably every ten minutes or so, features a number of interviews from those who visited the attractions. Showcasing those attractions are basically like those you see on Youtube, except the camera-work is purposely trying to make us not see the exhibits as possible. But the real horror comes is when the monsters from the ride start following them. That can be creepy in some sorts, but we immediately segues to some of the most uninteresting characters that you may commonly see in this genre. I mean really, what arc and what personality will we ever identify these people? The movie enjoys spinning wheels to them and there is still nothing exciting or likable about them.The least dragging parts are whenever they encounter their enemies, like they just appear from nowhere, but even there they get things wrong. The continuity of these scenes are vague, yeah it's found-footage, but who's shooting this? Also, why are these people so bad at shooting these things? More specifically, the ones that are supposed to be scary. Are they trying to do the Jaws approach where less is more, except they have to be annoyingly awful at shooting stuff? I'm sure they're no professional documentarians, but why? Yeah, I complain about some well- shot found-footage films, but there was a time when this genre manages to be convincing by just shaking the camera while capturing the visuals right. In fact, if these people are trying to follow this "realistically amateur" filmmaking approach, then why are their microphones sound so perfect? I can nitpick whatever I want, BUT WHY CAN'T THESE PEOPLE SHOOT ANYTHING RIGHT?!Alright, the few good things: the little girl is kinda legitimately creepy. The editing does get needlessly gimmicky with the camera glitches (is the girl an alien or something?), but yeah, she must stay away from me as far as possible. I couldn't tell if the acting is any good since the movie didn't give me any chance to get sucked into the writing. The costumes are effectively eerie and it's possible to get terrified by those whenever they try to attack the main characters, if only they were shot right.The Houses October Built is your standard found-footage, and when I say standard, as in the ones that are just too lazy to make any novelty scares and it's a shame because a bunch of costumed Halloween people has potential of being at least creepy, and how they're designed is kind of promising (needs more killer giant rabbit.) But again, the plot makes no sense, the characters are dry empty and the camera-work is one of the reasons why found-footage should be a crime now. These ideas could work actually, I wouldn't mind having some guy holding a camera being chased by masked psychopaths, but again, lead it to the professionals. The Houses October Built is just a boring mess. And the title cards also countdown to the day when climax happens, which rather felt like a number of tortures you'll have to take from its ultimate ineptitude and unwatchability. And it doesn't give you any worthy payoff, either. I guess that's the real horror they're trying to offer.

I like a good found footage movie, when it's done right it can be creepier than most 'regular' horror movies.This movie however... was, not done right.The acting isn't terrible but the plot can't sustain the duration of a movie by a long-shot, it would probably have worked as a 30 minute TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode but not as a 90 minute movie.The first hour you wait for something to happen and when it finally does you don't have the patience or energy to care how it's all gonna end, it all feels so tediously dull and in the end completely pointless.I originally wrote that they should have just made it a documentary on Haunted House attractions instead BUT then I found out that the makers of this movie actually made a documentary about just that in 2011 called the exact same thing as this is.Now I haven't seen that documentary but I think you're better off watching that than this.

This isn't actually that bad of a film from a film-making perspective. I mean it's put together decently enough, it's pretty well acted for the main part, and it did (just) enough to hold my interest. What lets it down for me is that it is a pretty dull film overall, and not enough happens to really scare you or freak you out, which is a pity because you would have expected more from a film dealing with haunted houses at Halloween.The film also gets a bit repetitive. They visit a haunted house, something happens, they move on to the next house: repeat. The in between incidents obviously differ but the whole outer packaging is the same.One strange thing I noticed about the film was that all of these bad, weird, and strange things were happening to the group more and more, gradually increasing, yet they still proceeded to look for the location of this "extreme haunt". I think most people would have just said "to Hell with this!" and would have left.Extreme dedication for the cause or just plain stupidity? I know where I sit on that one, but I'll let you decide for yourself.Is this a creepy film? Meh...kinda of, but only because of the Halloween haunted houses that the main group visit and the character of Porcelain. It was a bit too cliché with the amount of clown actors though. I mean I know they freak people out and can be creepy, but it just seemed that every second haunted house actor was a clown. The ending will probably freak some people out though, especially if they are claustrophobic. Other than that, there's not really much more to add to the creep factor of the film for me and it could (should?) have been much creepier given the film's story and setting.Oh, and this is another addition to the POV/found footage genre, so if you don't like that style of film-making then you'll hate this.Anyway, I've seen worse, and while it's not an awful film and it's worth a one-time watch, there's much, much better films of this genre to choose from.