The House of the Devil (2009)
Directed by Ti West
A young college student who’s struggling financially takes a strange babysitting job which coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret, putting her life in mortal danger.
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22 films that influenced The House of the Devil
What critics say influenced The House of the Devil
It joins the league of Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist and The Omen as one of the most diabolical entries in the modern horror library .
Imagine John Carpenter hired to make a drive-in knock-off of Rosemary’s Baby.
West matures considerably with what is basically a slow boil homage to the seventies that is obviously inspired by the classic “Rosemary’s Baby.”
Better than the film’s nuanced references to its forebears (the opening nods to Rosemary’s Baby with a track into Mary’s back positioned only partly inside a door frame), is its capricious script.
As the tale unfolds, a debt to not only '80s horror films, but also Rosemary's Baby, The Amityville Horror , and Hammer's gothic '70s classics also emerges: food (specifically, pizza) is a source of fetid disgust; murderous mysteries are discovered in the remote mansion's nooks and crannies; and Satanism is revealed as a malevolent force with which Samantha must ultimately reckon.
This is art house horror, heavily influenced by the scary movies made before "Halloween" changed the genre.
Yearn with learned fervor for the golden days of “Halloween“ when sexy gals were slaughtered with more elan?
Set in the 1980s and shot with a sensibility that mirrors the films that followed the lead of John Carpenter’s ground-breaking “Halloween,” “House of the Devil” is all about the simple task of creating tension – then releasing it in a catharsis of shrieking horror.
The opening credits dazzle with the nostalgia they elicit, freeze frames, camera zooms and the introduction of a gnarly synthesizer score by Jeff Grace almost as inspired as John Carpenter's in 1980's " The Fog " all put to striking use.
As the tale unfolds, a debt to not only '80s horror films, but also Rosemary's Baby, The Amityville Horror , and Hammer's gothic '70s classics also emerges: food (specifically, pizza) is a source of fetid disgust; murderous mysteries are discovered in the remote mansion's nooks and crannies; and Satanism is revealed as a malevolent force with which Samantha must ultimately reckon.
College student Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), all feathered hair and mom jeans, might remind you of Margot Kidder in The Amityville Horror — which seems about right, given this film’s ’80s-set creepy-house tableau.
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The owners (Tom Noonan, from Manhunter , and Mary Woronov, from Death Race 2000 ) inform her that they don't actually have a child; Samantha will have to look after an old lady.
Noonan earned his genre bona fides in Michael Mann’s “Manhunter’’ (1986), and Woronov, bless her, has been everywhere from Andy Warhol’s factory to “Rock ’n’ Roll High School’’ (1979) to “Eating Raoul’’ (1982).
Samantha's drawn to a babysitting ad that promises $100, but she's stood up by Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan, "Manhunter," "The Roost"), the man who'd agreed to meet her on campus.
Their nerves tingle at the quietly off-kilter manner of the man of the house, Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan of Manhunter), who confesses that the job isn't quite what it seems.
It's a variation on what Gus Van Sant has been doing for the last several years with films like Gerry and Last Days, stripping character and narrative down to the most basic requirements and focusing instead on observation in real time.
The production is so self-consciously threadbare that only about four other people seem to go to college with Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), the stressed-out student with a striking resemblance to Margot Kidder in “Sisters’’ (1973).
Noonan earned his genre bona fides in Michael Mann’s “Manhunter’’ (1986), and Woronov, bless her, has been everywhere from Andy Warhol’s factory to “Rock ’n’ Roll High School’’ (1979) to “Eating Raoul’’ (1982).
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“The House of the Devil’’ is an almost fetishistic re-creation of a horror-suspense movie from around 1978 - the era of “The Boogey Man,’’ “When a Stranger Calls,’’ “The Devil’s Rain,’’ and dozens of other staples of grindhouse theaters and late-night cable.
It's a variation on what Gus Van Sant has been doing for the last several years with films like Gerry and Last Days, stripping character and narrative down to the most basic requirements and focusing instead on observation in real time.