House (2008)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Jack and Stephanie (a writer and a singer) drive in Alabama. Jack is driving too fast, and a cop passes him. The cop had gone ahead to block off part of the road next to an accident. Jack runs over some of the cop's cones, so they have a conversation. Jack asks for the quickest way back to the Interstate, and the cop gives them a shortcut. This turns out very badly: there is a car partially blocking the dirt road, and a do-it-yourself spike strip over the rest of the path. So, they are in the middle of nowhere with two flat tires and one spare.Jack and Stephanie find a house with lights on inside, which looks promising. There is a guest register. Randy and Leslie (grad student in psychology, and a real estate developer) are the other involuntary 'guests,' who also ran over the same sharp iron and got flats on their BMW. Shortly after the two couples start exploring, the electricity goes out, and the men go looking for the generator.The owners, Stewart and Betty, plus son Pete, greet them and give them some so-so news, like indifferent telephone service, no likelihood of tow trucks coming in the night, and 20 USD/person to stay the night. Pete does fix the electricity, and Betty sets a nice table.At the dinner, the weirdness starts. The ice is impossibly cold, visions start showing up, the owners are rather menacing. When Leslie tries to leave, a menacing figure shows up at the front lawn. Betty is rather discouraged, and asks them what they did in order to bring forth the Tin Man. Leslie starts reading newspaper clippings glued to a wall, recounting an accident some years past.Betty identifies the figure as the Tin Man. She says that he comes only for the guilty. The Tin Man drops in a tin can with rules on it. They need to deliver a body to the Tin Man by morning, or else he will kill all of them. Stewart and Betty attempt to lock the quartet in the meat locker, but they fight back.So, do any of the protagonists survive? Just who are Stewart, Betty, Pete, and Tin Man, anyway? Do the guilty secrets of the young quartet surface? What secrets are contained in the house? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 7/10 Too dark, with focus a bit too soft.Sound: 5/10 A bit hollow at times. Also, the synchronisation between actors' lips and spoken words is off, giving the impression that the whole thing is dubbed without sub-titles.Acting: 6/10 Not great, but better than in many similar films. Lew Temple, Leslie Easterbrook, Bill Moseley, and Michael Madsen were fine, though Madsen's role was rather short.Screenplay: 5/10 Familiar themes with not much original, though the ending did seem to be borrowed from another genre. The story does move right along.

I was excited to see house because it seemed pretty creepy from the previews. I should have learned by now that scary movies are not all that scary.House was basically a mixture of House of Wax and any other crappy "terrifying" teen movie you can think of. The plot did not make sense at all. I don't know if you can even call it a plot. At first it was set up as a serial killer movie and then out of nowhere there were demons or ghosts, which was baffling to me.The house or the Tin Man, not quite sure, fed off of the couple's fears or past experiences. Throughout the film we were present with a few small mysteries that were never explained. I don't know if the writers forgot to add it in or they just didn't care to add logic. But I didn't care enough to be bothered by that.There was a character, Susan that held a fairly important role. Her reason for being, who she was, or where she came from was never explained. House wasn't scary and it didn't make much sense. Is there any scary movie with an actual plot out there?I have been on the search for the scariest movie ever made and have been failing miserably. Though, Paranormal Activity was probably the best I have seen thus far. The Ring scared me to death but I know I am just an idiot and scared myself. The Exorcist is too old school. Didn't do it for me.Send me recommendations of what you believe to be a truly successful terrifying film.

To go away liking this movie... you have to understand that it is more than just a haunted house movie... the house represents something more... it is a personification. It's based from a book "House" which is a Christian thriller... but the book isn't straight forwardly Christian... there is just a lot of undertones and messages and implications... and symbolism... and what not. If you don't understand these things then you may see this movie as pointless movie where people are trapped in a house or something with an unspeakable horror... Then... so you know... the movie really isn't that scary. It is. But on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) i'd say that it is a 2 or 3. It is creepy, the characters are creepy, the feel and look of the movie is different and somewhat creepy... so in other words the atmosphere of the movie is creepy... but the movie isn't so scary that you will have nightmares. Now... the movie isn't the best... but it is still entertaining to watch and especially fun to watch with girls who get scared and jump easily. There are a few spots that will have you jumping... possibly... I read the book so there were no surprises in the movie except for the ending which was changed up a little... but it wasn't disappointing to me that it was a little different. Don't go into it expecting tons of scares and not being able to go around the house by yourself or anything like that. But you can expect a little bit of entertainment and hopefully you will see what the writer of the book and creator of the movie are attempting to get you to see. Some people will watch the movie and completely overlook that this movie offers food for thought or a message to think about... you may not see it if you're not looking... so be sure to look.

I have to say...the cinematographer of this film should never work with film again. It looks like MAYBE 50% of the film was shot on 35mm while all the inserts and a few "action sequences" were filmed on digital in very low lighting. It looks like they didn't bother white-balancing the digital DV cameras, because there's horrible video gain in a good portion of the film. The color's of the lighting are completely inconsistent and look like they serve no story-driving purpose. Randomly people will be green or yellow or orange, and it changes all the time. The only reason I could think of that someone would do that, is if they were trying to make the view uncomfortable. In reality, the feeling i got was annoyed. The DP, also seemed to not know what a hair-light, kicker, back-light, etc. are because there seems to be almost a total lack of one in almost every shot. Needless to say, the lighting as well as the ridiculous camera angles and unnecessary, obsession with rack focusing unnecessarily, completely destroyed this film for me.Which, was sad, because i'll be honest the acting (which usually is what ruins a film) wasn't half bad. So, we know the director wasn't a total knob. The editing left something to be desired, though, the constant jump cuts of inserts could work if they were used only once or twice, but 5x in every scene is just annoying and excessive.I couldn't sit through the whole thing personally, and that has only happened with 4 films out of hundreds I've seen.