Review: House at the End of the Street

CAUTION: Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.



House at the End of the Street (SPOILERS. ISH.)
101 mins / Dir. Mark Tonderai

Catapulted into teen-icondom Jennifer Lawrence, the biggest face in Hollywood, has to put on her bravest act in this stark horror film...



Okay, two things…
1) When you put 'with an awesome twist' on the poster, the entire audience views the film waiting for that twist, and everything that comes before that revelation is wasted on them.
2) You seem to have confused 'twist' with 'plot development'.

If you can get past an hour and a half of completely unnecessary shaky-cam (complete with filters which make you think the Director of Photography might have been Jeff Instagram), and Elisabeth Shue in full 'made-for-TV-movie overacting' mode, House at the End of the Street is a fairly passable psychological thriller/horror.

And therein lies The Rub. This is not the 'horror' which the trailer promises, yet the film itself goes on to use the standard scare-tactics of the genre which all fall flat as there is no supernatural element at play. While the events that unfold are horrifying, it's in a very 'real world' sense and all the quiet-quiet-quiet-LOUD! moments only serve to underline the stupidity of a clearly vulnerable character deciding to explore a locked cellar in a house with a murderous history at a time of uncertainty. So yeah; in a standard horror-flick it would be par for the course, but the actual story is more intelligent than that, and it's a real shame to see it wasted on this screenplay.

That said, I went in with minimal expectations, and HATEotS surpassed them. This certainly appears to be the key to enjoyment, sadly.

It's okay, but horror and slasher buffs may be disappointed at the lack of beef.





Interesting, but hamstrung by its need to scare.

DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.

• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.