Furious Finale Gives Devil Its Due
Does a fantastic final 30 minutes make a rather boring and relatively mediocre movie a good one? That's the question I have to ask myself in regards to writer and director Ti West’s much buzzed about minimalist horror effort The House of the Devil. For the majority of the running time I couldn’t help but wonder what all the fuss was about, the first hour a snooze fest that came perilously close to putting me to sleep.
Jocelin Donahue in Magnet Releasing's The House of the Devil
The film is the relatively straight forward saga of a collegiate babysitter named Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) caring for the supposedly invalid mother of the mysterious Mr. (Tom Noonan) and Mrs. Ulman (Mary Wornov) on the night of a lunar eclipse only to discover a terrifying truth putting her own life in jeopardy. To put it bluntly, none of this is very surprising the movie neer going in a direction I didn’t readily anticipate.
Even with that being the case, the last half hour is perfectly wonderful. There is blood. There is death. There are ghouls and goblins. There are chases and escapes. There is the requisite blood-curdling twist. There is also excitement, energy and an emotional component I didn’t see coming, and as things spiraled more and more out of control I couldn’t help but hope the plucky never-say-die heroine would find a way to drag herself to salvation.
The thing is, getting to that point took about every last ounce of effort I possess. West works hard to make a Wes Craven/John Carpenter/George A. Romero late 1970’s-early 1980’s style shocker that relies on suspense and restraint to rustle up its scares and I totally respect the attempt. The problem is that this is a 45-minute idea stretched out to 90-plus minutes, long portions going nowhere and adding nothing to the proceeding other than to pad out the running time.
I have to admit there is a great gunshot death smack dab in the middle that caught my attention, and while I knew something bad was about to happen the way West delivers it is still pretty horrifying. I also think Eliot Rockett’s cinematography is up with some of the finest I’ve seen this year, his slinky twists around corners, up staircases and through keyholes so unnerving it comes perilously close to perfection.
As for the actors, I loved Dee Wallace’s sly little cameo at the beginning, and Greta Gerwig hits all the right notes as Samantha’s spunky best friend Megan. It almost goes without saying that old pros Noonan and Wornov were just made for stories like this one, while Donahue does solid work even if the majority of the film only requires her to slouch into couches, wander aimlessly from here to there and otherwise act like a complete nincompoop.
For me, if this movie had been a lost episode of “The Twilight Zone” I’d be raving like crazy about it. While it doesn’t do anything unexpected, it hits so many of the right notes it’s hard to come away completely disappointed. But at feature length West has trouble maintaining the tension, and as great as everyone is and as strong as the film is technically there are long portions where nothing of interest happens causing the viewer's attentions to wain.
And yet I am at a quandary. As climaxes go, the one coming in at the tail end of The House of the Devil is positively superb. West had me clutching the side of my seat with one hand while I breathlessly chewed off the fingernails on the other. The finale has energy to spare, all of it leading up to a gloriously shocking coda that, while not new, seriously made my skin crawl. Whether that makes the film worthy of a recommendation I’ll happily leave up to you.
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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