House of the Devil (2009)

In 1983, financially struggling college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret, putting her life in mortal danger. 

REVIEW: The House of the Devil, brought to us by horror director Ti West back in 2009, is a very well-done and faithful throwback to the 1970's/1980's devil-cult horror movies of old, which any diehard fan of the horror genre should appreciate. It’s very well-acted, makes excellent use of building the uneasy tension throughout, and it culminates into nail-biting terror in the final half hour when the shit truly hits the fan.

My only lone semi-complaint is that this movie does indeed move at a snail's pace and not a whole lot really happens, story-wise, until that final half hour. Personally, that didn't bother me too much, because I really appreciated how it used that time to make us acquainted with the main character and have us actually care about what happens to her later, as well as slowly and subtly build the tension throughout, of which that final portion wouldn’t be nearly as effective without.

I can certainly see the slow burn being a huge turn-off to a lot of people though, especially those with short attention spans that need to have something happening every 10 minutes, which there's nothing wrong with if that's your taste, but I would still urge you to give this a shot anyway, in the off-chance that you might be able to appreciate what it's going for.

However, if you are a fan of classic slow-burn movies of this nature, like I am, than this is a real gem to come across. I've actually become a fan of Ti West between this movie, The Innkeepers, and his segment in the first V/H/S movie, and it pains me that he doesn't really seem to be doing much any more these days within the horror genre, other than random job-for-hire episodes of a couple horror TV shows.

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward