« Prioritizing | Main | Dearly Departed »
May 13, 2009
The House Of The Devil
I've been told that I shouldn't officially review Ti West's The House Of The Devil, seeing as how my name shows up in the credits; but it was accidentally misspelled, so I'd wager that gives me some wiggle room to talk about how terrific this picture really is. Am I crazy to think that it's actually on par with Rosemary's Baby? That it only taps into the lonely dread of babysitting where Polanski so memorably teased out the fear of impending motherhood might make it a more modest triumph, but as far as literal horror goes, I'd argue that this film is just as terrifying journey into the occult. The last time I was this frightened by a film was last year's surprisingly strong The Strangers, but in that case I knew exactly what to be scared of, and when, whereas the escalating, self-sustaining fear in The House Of The Devil seems to well up from parts unknown.
I should note that the version I saw was the original cut, including the four minutes the producers removed for pacing reasons prior to the Tribeca premiere. This alteration, as some may recall, caused something of a stir, and while the trimmed version is still a perfectly effective film, it's frustrating to know that audiences aren't seeing it in as fine a form as they could be. The excised sequences make the film shorter, but they don't effect the pace one bit; if anything, they reduce what was once a graceful and creepy bit of spatial exposition into a mild thunk of an edit, and a single bad cut can make a film feel longer than any number of leisurely shots. What's so exciting about the film is that Ti understands formalism as well as he does genre, and the combination make for an experience that is as cinematically sound as it is genuinely frightening.
Hopefully, if the powers that be know what's right for all involved, the film will be out in theaters in time for Halloween.
Posted by David Lowery at May 13, 2009 12:44 AM