The House of the Devil

Easily the two most polarizing horror films of 2009 were Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity (reviewed here previously), and Ti West's The House of the Devil, a little slice of horror nostalgia about a very strange time in America's collective subconcious. An odd marriage of permutated Cold War anxiety and a burgeoning psychoanalytic movement gave birth to an entrenched national fear of satanic individuals, cults, and particularly the alleged ritual abuses they enacted. Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby (1968) is the obvious early cinematic statement on the matter, but the cultural fervor lasted well into the early 1980s.

The premise for The House of the Devil is refreshingly simple: looking for some extra cash to make the deposit on a new apartment, college sophomore Samantha responds to a mysterious ad for a babysitter. Unfazed by her potential employer's odd telephone etiquette, Samantha agrees to take the babysitting job at a sprawling country home in an unspecified area of upstate New York. Little does Sam know that the job is not exactly what it appears, and that somewhere inside the Ulmans' country estate lurks a series of grisly and demonic secrets. Faced with the unsettling Ulman family, the disquieting house, and threats lurking both within and without, Sam's night slowly descends into terror.

I suspect that West's choice of an early '80s setting was initially nothing more than a plot device to eliminate the inconvenient reality of the vast and instant communication network available to us now through cell phones and the internet. Which, to many, would seem like cheating. But this simple plot device blossomed into a meticulous and fun homage to the late '70s/ early '80s horror vibe. Not only this, but West's anti-technology choice is a welcome counterstrike to a horror market glutted with thematically stale iterations of technophobia. To wit: Stephen King's novel Cell, South Korea's Phone (2002) and America's dreadful pseudo-remake One Missed Call (2008), and the Japanese Pulse (2001) and its even more ridiculous American remake of the same name from 2006. As the subtle exclamation point to his techno-bivalent statement, West inserts several telephone conversation scenes (many with rotary phones!) to serve as intermittent communication fulcrum points in a film otherwise marked by a profound sense of isolation.

The House of the Devil's detractors (and there are many) fall into two main categories: those who think the film's subject matter is misplaced for a 2009 release, and those who balk at the film's somewhat unconventional pace. It's true that modern technocratic America has very little use for fears over satanic cults. Most of these fears have long since proved unfounded. Accusations of satanic abuses were grossly exaggerated. Psychoanalysis is now met with heavy skepticism. The Cold War is over. We now have too many real wars accompanied by too many real atrocities. Why invent satanists to take the fall? Besides, Satanism is now a recognized and protected religion. Satanists are your neighbors. Satanists are your friends.

But remember: Rosemary's Baby wasn't really about satanism. It was about the claustrophobia and paranoia bred by urban living. And about the tenuous nature of trust in a new marriage. Satanism was just the supernatural icing on the cake. West just inverts Polanski's urban claustrophobia and comes out with rural isolation. And then doubles up on the isolation theme with an obviously withdrawn and lonely protagonist. Sam hates her current roommate, has no family to speak of, and has only one real friend to talk to. Critics who decry the slow pace of the film's middle may not realize that it perfectly accentuates Sam's physical and emotional isolation, all while slowly injecting a sense of profound dread. Punctuating this are intermittent slices of brutal violence, made all the more shocking by the relative silences that precede and follow. When the film's furious climax comes, it's almost a letdown, because the reality of violence is less intense than the dreading of the previously unknown.

All in all, I believe the criticisms directed at The House of the Devil are largely misplaced, but I understand that Ti West has created a film that may have a limited audience of genre fans that appreciate a nostalgic romp through old fears. Aside from a mid-movie Walkman dance sequence (that was still oddly compelling), the film stays grounded in serious filmmaking instead of reaching directly for the easily accessible over-the-top cheese.

Storyline & plot: 6/10
Cinematography & effects: 9/10
Music & mood: 9/10
Performances: 7/10

The Reverend says: 8/10