The night before I watched The House of the Devil, I had a long discussion with a co-writer about the state of horror; how it seemed it had devolved to a point where most of the great genre entries of the last twenty years or so didn’t really fit under the general heading of “Horror.” Cited as evidence was the wash and rinse formula most of the bigger-budgeted hits of the last few years have been hammering into the horror audience. I’ve always been one to contend that the best horror films don’t always fall under such broad headings as we were discussing, but I’d be lying if I said it was an easy argument for me to fight – just look at the reception to damn near all of the remakes last year. Friday the 13th (09) was undeniably abysmal, and I’ve seen Jason X seven times. It seems that somewhere in the last decade, Hollywood forgot how to get the dollars in their pocket while still delivering product that was in any way unique or exciting.
Every week it seems, I’ve got people around me bitching about the Saw movies, but where they lose me is “Why do they keep doing them?” Why? Because the first Saw movie took less to make than a print of Lawrence of Arabia would take to buy, and made a f-ckton of money. And the series is still making money. You want it to stop? Stop going.
The House of the Devil couldn’t have hit me at a better time. It's been a long, long time since I’ve been strung along like this by a horror film. And when I say "horror", I mean it. The House of the Devil doesn’t know how not to be scary. Character buildup and logic seems effortless, but are so meticulously worked out that even when there’s a “Why didn’t she do that?” moment in the finale it’s taken in stride. For the record I hate most of the finale of Halloween. Why doesn’t she kill him? Why doesn’t she kill him? Why didn’t she kill him there? Does our heroine Samantha make mistakes? Eeerm, yes. But can I accept them due to the pitch-perfect development of the story and her character? Absolutely. I feel like I know the girl from the, really, very simple establishment we're given of who she is. As the film takes place over the course of one day, her reactions to progressively more strenuous and heart-rending events can be understood and accepted by even the most hardened and righteous "Why Didn’t She Kill Him" audience members. If there’s anything at all negative to say about the film’s structure, it’s that, until certain events occur to legitimize the digression from its very Samantha-centric perspective, the derivation into a more omniscient view can be distracting. But in the end, even that works in the film’s subversive favor.
Writer/Director Ti West shot the film in the vein of some truly great pre-cell phone horror. Though saying it like that kind of gives him too little credit – he’s really got it right here. Fashion and location fit with the era, just as much as the cinematography and writing style. A few motifs from specific films pop up, most notably a rather awesome and subtle tribute to Burnt Offerings, one of the very scariest and most brilliant haunted house exercises of the 70s. Shades of numerous other genre entries pop up here and there, making this a very obvious labor of love. More than most labors of love, though, The House of the Devil has the distinction of being a finely crafted work of art in its own right.
DVD Bonus Features
The DVD includes two featurettes, the trailer and three wholly unnecessary deleted scenes, as well as two commentaries with West and company. Far more unique is the Amazon-exclusive VHS which was shipped with my copy. Having a home video collection which turned my friends green with envy long before the DVD age, I had perhaps, unrealistic expectations for the VHS. When I saw that big plastic clamshell, though, I immediately knew I was dealing with someone who understood what was what. Comparing the VHS and DVD packaging is a great experience in its own right, as while they both clutter the surface area with various bullcrap, the DVD’s standard-issue critical ravings seem wholly bland in comparison to the gritty, overblown packaging motifs from the videostore era, which have been lovingly emulated for the bigbox VHS of The House of the Devil.
Popping the tape in, I saw that one of the classic FBI warnings had been preserved in lieu of the new-age ones that make DVDs look like digital crap regardless of how the movie was shot, and the absurd medusa head distribution intro for Gorgon Video makes an appearance. Most importantly for a purist like myself, the VHS preserves the precise 1.78:1 aspect ratio in which the film was shot when viewed on a standard 4x3 tube television, whereas the HD monitor I viewed the DVD on only had settings for 1.85:1 and various other blown-out ratios. It’s a sad day when a VHS comes closer to a director’s intention than a DVD or Blu-ray in any facet, let alone one so important as this. If you have a high-end HD screen with more than four video output settings, it shouldn’t be a problem. Insignia though, just doesn’t cut it.
