NeutralAxis

Like Dead Snow, here’s another small movie making the art house rounds that looks fun.  The House of the Devil.  Rottentomatoes.com ranks it at 87% positive with critics, 80% positive with top critics, and 73% positive with viewers.  I love the first sentence of Roger Ebert’s 3 star review.  “Has there ever been a movie where a teenage baby-sitter enjoyed a pleasant evening?” [Updated since seeing the movie]

Sam, a pretty college sophomore, is desperate for cash and takes a babysitting gig out in the middle of nowhere.  Perhaps she should have had second thoughts when she discovers there’s actually no baby.  All she needs to do for the money is stay over night in a creepy old couple’s creepy old house … during a lunar eclipse.  Of course, lunar eclipses don’t actually last all that long, so I don’t see how they can build much tension from that.  30 Days of Night did that hook right with its arctic setting.  I’ll update this after seeing the movie.

[Update:  OK, so now after I've seen the movie, the deal with there being no baby isn't such a big deal and the eclipse is a minor plot point.  The man who has hired her (hereinafter referred to as Tall Man) explains that they actually need her to be there for his wife's elderly mother and had been unable to get a response to their ads seeking elder care.  They decided a babysitter ad might get a better response.  The movie was very much like horror movies from the 70s and 80s.  The original Halloween came to mind because like that, this movie has a long slow buildup of tension before the climax.  The final climax of this literally comes in about the last 20 minutes.  Everything up until that is atmospherics.  Overall, if you like the genre, its worthwhile.  I noticed that the woman in the row in front of me kept her face buried in her husband's shoulder for most of the movie, apparently constantly thinking the other shoe was about to drop.]