Watch House For Free

the audience applauded

Overrated and overhyped

Memorable, crazy movie

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

In rural Alabama, two couples find themselves in a fight for survival. Running from a maniac (The Tin Man) bent on killing them, they flee deep into the woods and seek refuge in a house. They soon realize the killer has purposely lured them to this house and that they are now trapped.The best thing about this film? An incredible genre cast: Michael Madsen, Leslie Easterbrook, Bill Moseley, Lew Temple and even Lance Henriksen. Director Robby Henson's work has also attracted such acclaimed actors Billy Bob Thornton, Patricia Arquette, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper, William DeVane and Kris Kristofferson. This is not one of the better films, though.We have terrible acting (especially from the country-singing wife), awful direction, and cinematography that seems obsessed with blue /green coloration for no reason. Moseley plays his usual self, and audiences are getting sick of it.Although it is hard to say for sure, one assumes the novel by Frank E. Peretti and Ted Dekker has to be better than the film it became. The novel is apparently Christian fiction, though it seems odd with such lines as, "God came to my house and I killed him."

Keep in mind that I watched House having already read the book by Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti. In keeping with what reviewers have already said, the book was exponentially better; it was truly terrorizing, and well-paced with fantastic memorable characters. Frankly put, it was one of the best books I have read and probably one of the top 5 killer thrillers of all time. The spiritual message was also strong and unambiguous. But this is not a review on the book, so moving on ...To be fair, House the movie never had a chance of succeeding since it was crippled by the typical Christian movie low budget. It achieved slightly more than the dreadful Left Behind films, but was much worse than recent religious movies such as God's Not Dead and even Dekker's other famous movie Thr3e.The story of house is horrific and not for the squeamish, but this real terror never came through in the movie. It is not even that scary. The R rating is absolutely absurd; it could have passed for PG if it had come about via mainstream Hollywood. There is no blood, sex, and the only curse is "hell" once. What is the R for? Apparently pure shock value.Michael Madsen is wasted as the psychopathic Tin Man. In the book the killer - otherwise known as Barsidious White - is a terrifying madman and one of the most memorable modern literary villains. But in the movie he is just corny. The mask is horrendously done, his jerky movements are humorous, and the stupid voice overs are reminiscent of a low budget Indie horror flick. The Tin Man never really gets going, and his dialogue is forced and stale.The members of the house are fairly scary, although Betty is a bit stereotypical. Pete makes a decent sex pervert chasing after one of the refugees, and Bill Moseley's excellent performance as Stewart is responsible for at least 2 of the 4 stars I gave the movie.The travelers themselves are fairly lame, although they look the part. As soon as Randy opens his mouth you can tell he is a soap opera dufus. Jack and Stephanie are too attractive to be taken seriously, and Leslie would be a good actor if it weren't for her perpetual cheesy grin. The acting by all four ultimately falls flat.Susan, the angel trapped in the house who ultimately sacrifices her life for the good of the others, is a bright spot about halfway through the movie. True, she is too cute to be taken seriously as a victim of a deranged serial killer, but she plays the part well and is probably the strongest character in the movie besides Stewart. The depth of her sacrifice is not lost on the movie's viewers, even in the midst of the tragically bad filmmaking.The music in the movie is pretty good, but the actual visual effects are pretty lame and the quality of the picture is not so hot. The dialogue falls into soap opera cheesiness at times, but for the most part it is not horrible. The plot is based loosely on the book but is not always representative of the ideals Peretti and Dekker were trying to convey. God is not mentioned much, if at all, and the spiritual side of the story is missing. Keep in mind that the Hollywood depravity of most horror thrillers is also missing, refreshingly.Perhaps this movie would have been better if the directors and producers had not deviated so much from the plot of the novel, and if they had maintained the spiritual aspect of the narrative. The book was dynamic, the movie falls short.Labelled as a horror movie, House is not so much horror as it is blandly scary. The producers throw in some pentagrams and 666's for good measure, but even the Satanism of the house's inhabitants is not that scary. It just seems silly. Without spoiling the outcome of the movie, there is also a fair amount of bloodless killing, but it is somewhat expected and not that shocking.One aspect of the movie I enjoyed was the LOST-esque flashbacks to the "sins" of the four characters. Melissa's death is heart-wrenching, and the revelation that Leslie was raped by her uncle elicits some sympathy for her character. At least the brass behind the movie got this film technique right.Overall, House is not a bad movie, but it is not an especially good one. It falls a tad flat for the most part, but it is worth a watch. Go into it not expecting much, and you should get at least some mild enjoyment out of it. The younger you watch it the more you will like it. And the less experienced of a horror fan you are the more scared you will be.To borrow the story's catchphrase, the only way out is in ...

Hollywood has not been kind to movies of faith. Christian film makers have tried and tried again to evangelize through faith-based-movies. With Nintendo quality CGI (remember your old NES?)and only slightly better acting these movies have fared less than well in the past. i.e. Left Behind, Fireproof or The Omega Code.Enter Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti. Both are N.Y. TIMES bestsellers and modern day gods in the realm of Christian fiction. Dekker, a respected suspense author teamed up with supernatural / thriller writer Peretti to write what some call, Stephen King's version of the Gospels. The book sold nearly half a million copies and jumped from page to screen in only two years.Surprisingly Kirk Cameron didn't show up in this one. Was he even considered for casting? Doubtful. Instead, director Robbie Henson delivers an almost evil-to-the-core Christian horror film with an experienced roster of staff and actors. This is by no means an evangelical film and the theology is a little deep, but it is a classic tale of good vs. evil.Dekker's and Peretti's tale pits two young couples against the sins of their past which take form as an evil house. Sounds crazy but it works. Eerily, the house knows its inhabitants and their sins of guilt. Using their past against them the house manipulates them into killing off one another. The house thinks, responds and creates hellish illusions trying to bring down its unwanted visitors.What does this have to do with Christianity? Each of us are held captive by our own sins: Satan uses the sins of our past to bind us and consume us. By design, the sins of our past haunt us and become the sins of our present. Its no longer a matter of walking away. We need a savior. In HOUSE that savior came in the form of a young girl named Susan who unselfishly and unfairly accepted an untimely death to atone for the sins of those who surrounded her. Sound familiar? Christ gave himself in the same way for sins he never committed.The movie is far from brilliant but light years ahead of any Christian based movie so far. The bottom line is simple, its a movie that will scare the Hell out of you.

I rented this film' after reading the back and looking at the cover and sort of 'panic renting', you know, when you've been in the vid rental shop for ages and still cant find anything you want, so you pick up one that looks OK, well I took it to the counter and as I said the guy looked at me with a smirk. I should have known and he should have warned me, in fact there should be a warning sticker on the DVD case saying " STOP. BEFORE WATCHING THIS MOVIE REMOVE YOUR EYES AND BRAIN". OMFG, this is so bad, my wife wanted to divorce me half way through this, please ignore anyones comments that say this title is 'ok' or 'not bad' or 'watchable', its not its awful, the characters are just stupid and the story is pathetic. We kept watching in disbelief just to see how bad it could get, if any story would happen, if it could sort of pull itself back from the edge, but no, it didn't. For most part of the movie the main characters are wandering around in tunnels, they cant get out and then they wander and then they cant get out. Was sh*te.