The House of the Devil is horror distilled to its essence. Not just the specific tropes of the genre, but the emphasis on the suspense, the patient build-up, the gory finish, and the ominous close. This film was made by a man (Ti West) who loves the genre, and he blends together damn near everything that’s made horror famous and infamous. My initial viewing left me admiring but dispassionate. Retrospect makes the film better. There’s a purity at work here, a simplicity comparable to genre pictures like Cat People and Halloween. This film has no grand message or significant underpinnings. Its pleasures are aesthetic and visceral, not intellectual. The House of the Devil wants to scare you, and so it does.
RATING: B+
A few things I noticed after viewing the film:
1. While heroine Samantha (Jocelin Donahue, radiant and sympathetic) initially struck me as a standard Laurie Strode type, she also carries some of the spunk of Margot Kidder’s Barb Coard from Black Christmas. Most interestingly, her hair is done almost exactly the same way as Jessica Harper’s Suzy in Suspiria (left side of picture below). I can’t imagine this not being purposeful, as Suspiria also drops a virginal heroine into an occult nightmare. Casual viewers will miss this. Horror fans will likely feel some extra anxiety, even if they can't quite place it.
2. The films that directly influence the picture betray its efforts to be a 1980’s film. In an interview with Cinematical, West stated that he set it at that time due to the preponderance of news stories about devil worship, and the interviewer compliments the aesthetic as being faithful. However, in that exact same interview, West cites Roman Polanski as a big influence, and he name-checks The Changeling. This says nothing of the broader influences from religious pictures like The Omen, The Exorcist, and The Sentinel. The one thing all these films have in common? Not a single one was released in the eighties. Ti West is a liar.
3. A. J. Bowen doesn’t have a hell of a lot to do in this film, but between his role here and in The Signal, he’s an actor that can play a variety of shades, and he can play them well. If he’s currently having trouble finding gigs, I humbly suggest that he launch a remake or documentary on Manos: The Hands of Fate, since he’s a dead ringer for Tom “Torgo” Neyman.
He even gets the same kick out of peeping.
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