The House of the Devil

The House of the Devil
Theatrical release poster by Neil Kellerhouse
Directed by	Ti West
Produced by	Josh Braun Derek Curl Roger Kass Peter Phok
Written by	Ti West
Starring	Jocelin Donahue Tom Noonan Mary Woronov Greta Gerwig Dee Wallace
Music by	Jeff Grace
Cinematography	Eliot Rockett
Edited by	Ti West
Production company	Constructovision RingTheJig Entertainment Glass Eye Pix
Distributed by	MPI Media Group (theatrical) Dark Sky Films (DVD and VHS) Gorgon Video (VHS)
Release date	25 April 2009 (Tribeca Film Festival) October 30, 2009 (2009-10-30) [1]
Running time	95 minutes[2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$900,000[3]
Box office	$101,215[4]

The House of the Devil is a 2009 American horror film written, directed, and edited by Ti West, starring Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, and Mary Woronov.

The plot concerns a young college student who is hired as a babysitter at an isolated house and is soon caught up in bizarre and dangerous events as she fights for her life.

The film combines elements of both the slasher film and haunted house subgenres while using the "satanic panic" of the 1980s as a central plot element. The film pays homage to horror films of the 1970s and 1980s, recreating the style of films of that era using filming techniques and similar technology to what was used then. The film's opening text claims that it is based upon true events, a technique used in some horror films, such as The Amityville Horror and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Plot

In the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue) inspects a house she wishes to rent. Due to Samantha reminding her of her own daughter, landlady (Dee Wallace) forgoes a deposit in favor of one month's rent in advance. Samantha is struggling financially so she takes on a babysitting job for Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan) and his wife (Mary Woronov). Ulman asks to meet her but stands her up, later apologizing and offering to pay double the original salary. Samantha accepts and gets a ride to the remote mansion from her best friend, Megan (Greta Gerwig). At the house, Mr. Ulman pulls her aside and reveals that he does not have any children to be monitored; the babysitting job is to attend to his wife's ailing mother. Samantha balks but finally agrees when she is offered $400 for the job, a significant increase in her pay. Megan immediately leaves, citing Ulman's lies and peculiar behavior, but she reluctantly promises to pick up Samantha later. Before the Ulmans depart, Samantha speaks with Mrs. Ulman, who tells her they are from "the desert."

On the way home, Megan stops in her car to smoke a cigarette. When her lighter will not work, a stranger (A.J. Bowen) suddenly appears out of nowhere, startling her, and lights her cigarette for her. When Megan reveals that she is not the babysitter hired by the Ulmans, she is abruptly shot and murdered by the stranger. After ordering a pizza, Samantha dances around the house while listening to her Walkman, accidentally breaking a vase in the process. While cleaning up the mess, she discovers a cupboard filled with old family photographs. In one photograph a different family than the Ulmans stands next to the Volvo she and Megan saw upon pulling up to the house. An additionally peculiar detail is that the family in the photograph has a young son. This seems unlikely as the Volvo is a new car and Mr. Ulman stated that although they had a child he was now grown.

Samantha, shaken by a number of issues at the house and being startled by the arrival of the pizza she ordered (by the same man that killed Megan), dials 911, but eventually manages to calm herself down. Drugs in the pizza eventually cause Samantha to pass out, just as she discovers activity behind a door leading to the third floor. When she comes to, she finds that she has been bound and gagged in the center of a Pentagram. As a lunar eclipse darkens the night sky, Mr. and Mrs. Ulman, along with the stranger, who is actually their son Victor, begin a bizarre ritual. Mother (Danielle Noe) is revealed to be a grotesque, witch-like figure. As part of the ritual she slices her arm and pours the blood into a goat skull. She uses the blood to draw occult symbols on Samantha's stomach and forehead, and forces Samantha to drink her blood from the skull.

Samantha manages to escape halfway through the ritual, killing Mrs. Ulman and Victor, but horrific images begin appearing in her mind. Mr. Ulman chases her out of the house and through a nearby cemetery. There, he tells her she was chosen. Samantha threatens him with the gun used to kill Megan, but Ulman passively accepts his fate, claiming to be a messenger and gloating that she's too late. Instead of shooting him, she shoots herself in the head, to Ulman's horror. The scene cuts to a broadcast about the strange lunar eclipse the night before, which has confounded scientists due to its abrupt ending, as Samantha is revealed to be in a hospital bed, in bandages. A nurse walks in and pats the unconscious Samantha on the stomach, reassuring her that "You will be just fine. Both of you."

Cast

• Jocelin Donahue as Samantha Hughes
• Tom Noonan as Mr. Ulman
• Mary Woronov as Mrs. Ulman
• Greta Gerwig as Megan
• A. J. Bowen as Victor Ulman
• Dee Wallace as Landlady
• Lena Dunham as 911 Operator

Production

The film was shot in Connecticut. Taking place in the 1980s, the film was made with 16mm film, giving it a retro stylistic look that matched the decade.^[5] Similarly, some aspects of the culture of the 1980s (i.e. feathered hair, Samantha's 1980 Sony Walkman, The Fixx's 1983 song "One Thing Leads to Another", The Greg Kihn Band's 1981 song "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)", and the Volvo 240 sedan) are seen in the film as signifiers of the decade.^[6] The cinematography of the film also reflects the methods used by directors of the time. For instance, West often has the camera zoom in on characters (rather than dolly in as is now common in film), a technique that was often used in horror films of the 1970s and continued to be used into the 1980s.^[7] Other stylistic signifiers include opening credits (which became less common in films in the decades after the 1980s) in yellow font accompanied by freeze-frames and the closing credits being played over a still image of the final scene.

Release

The United States premiere was at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 25. It was made available through video on demand on October 1, 2009. The film was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 30, 2009.^[8][9] The DVD and Blu-ray of the film were released on February 2, 2010.^[10][11] A promotional copy of the film was released on VHS in a clamshell box like the ones that many early VHS films of the 1980s came in.^[12][13]

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for The House of the Devil was released in November 2009 as a double feature with the score of I Can See You, both by composer Jeff Grace.^[14]

1. Opening (1.10)
2. Family Photos (2.24)
3. The View Upstairs (1.45)
4. Original Inhabitants (3.05)
5. Meeting Mr. Ulman (1.12)
6. Keep the Change (1.12)
7. Footsteps (1.27)
8. Mother (3.07)
9. Chalice (0.51)
10. On the Run (3.45)
11. Lights Out (3.04)
12. He's Calling You (1.50)
13. The House of the Devil (5.49)
14. Mrs. Ulman (2.04)

Tracks from 15 to 26 comprise the soundtrack for I Can See You.

Reception

The film received a score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 83 reviews; the site's reviews' consensus is "Though its underlying themes are familiar, House of the Devil effectively sheds the loud and gory cliches of contemporary horror to deliver a tense, slowly building throwback to the fright flicks of decades past."^[15] It has also received an overall score of 73 on Metacritic based on 12 reviews, indicating "Generally favorable reviews."^[16] Roger Ebert gave it 3 out of 4 stars, complimenting its use of subtlety and tension as being "an introduction for some audience members to the Hitchcockian definition of suspense."^[17] Kevin Sommerfield from Slasher Studios gave the film four out of four stars commenting that the film is "not just a nostalgia piece for director Ti West, one of the best horror directors working today, this is how horror movies SHOULD be made".^[18] Oliver Smith of 7films said "as the great horror films of past days, such as The Omen or Rosemary’s Baby, The House of the Devil is a slow-burning horror film".^[19]

The film won a few awards shortly after its release. It won the 2009 Birmingham Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival award for Best Feature Film. At the 2009 Screamfest it won festival trophies for Best Actress (Jocelin Donahue) and Best Score (Jeff Grace).^[20]

See also

• List of films featuring eclipses

References

External links

• Official website
• The House of the Devil on IMDb
• The House of the Devil at AllMovie
• The House of the Devil at Rotten Tomatoes
• Spout interview with director Ti West
• Interview with Ti West about The House of The Devil at ion magazine