“They don’t write ‘em like that anymore.”

The reviews I read for Ti West‘s The House of the Devil are all over the fucking board. Some called the film a bore in which “nothing happens” for 2/3 of the movie. Others are praising it for that very reason. It’s drawing comparisons to Rosemary’s Baby and early Paul Thomas Anderson. Others are (lazily) writing it off as an unimaginative Survival-Girl tosser. The plot itself is as straight-forward as they come:

In the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret…(IMDB)

I watched it twice yesterday, back-to-back, and this honestly might make my top 10 for 2009. By no means am I a horror buff  (if you want to talk about noir or sci-fi, we can dance), but shoving HOTD into a “horror” box seems a sad understatement. It’s just a fucking great, entertaining movie.

West deploys the suspense masterfully and artistically throughout the movie, and on a second viewing I noticed a few cryptic images peppered in the background well before Samantha even arrives at the house (what’s up with the slow zoom on the chef statue in the pizza joint?!?!?!). When we do get to the Ulman house, Sound and Mood become the mantra. As she explores the house, we’re there with Samantha through every creaky step, pull-string light, and closet door. And instead of slipping into “boring” territory, every second just added to the suspense. As a testament to West’s expertise, even a dance sequence adds more white to the knuckles.

As far as the payoff at the end, I can see how some found it unworthy of the wait, but I can also see how those people are retarded.

HOTD is now available On Demand and will be in theaters October 30.

- Oh Mars