The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog
Inspiring ghouls of the fictional world of horror everywhere.
Macabre Movie Reviews – The Perfect House
Sometimes a house is evil, sometimes a house is possessed, sometimes…well sometimes, a house is just a place where the evil gather.
I slept in an evil house one time. I think it was called Mintyville, or maybe it was Amitytown, no wait, it was Disney Castle, that’s what it was, Disney Castle. You really don’t want to know what I found there, corpses, World War II artifacts, a few extremely anti-Jewish posters (apparently Jewish people could fly at the speed of light, leap tall buildings, and manage a bank all at the same time according to Mr. Walt Disney); it was bad. Still, I’d rather sleep there a few more nights than have to stay in the house presented here.
Our film begins with a family going over their neighbor’s house to enjoy a nice dinner. Things don’t go so nice when the patriarch of this family mentions throwing away a borrowed weed-whacker because it was a piece of shit. Fade to black, listen to screams, imagine what happened (I’m sure as hell not going to tell you) and we go a bit forward in time to a place where the house is being sold to a new couple. This couple is wary of why their house of choice is being sold so cheap but the extremely hot real estate agent keeps their worries to a minimum, and when I say hot, I mean hot. I would buy a different house a day if actress Monique Parent (of soft core porn fame, you know, those videos where you can tell they’re not really having sex because…let’s just not go there) was selling these places, death and destruction be damned. As our couple goes back and forth on whether or not to buy a house that could be too good to be true we are treated to the first tragedy to befall this normal looking home. Flashback several decades in the past and our house is under siege by Mother Nature as a storm rips through the neighborhood forcing the current residents to flee into the basement, but something isn’t right. The dad spends most of the time defending his two children from the verbal abuse of their mother while the children stew in barley covered anger. As the storm brings darkness to the basement, a greater darkness overtakes the children and their rage becomes far more powerful than anything the storm can throw at them. Go back to our house hunting couple and they are still touring the premises, unsure of whether or not the purchase is worthwhile. While they think out the decision of a lifetime, we are treated to a couple more examples of what has transpired in this house to make it such a bargain and why it may not quite be the perfect house.
{Never insult a man’s weed-whacker}
I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I was asked to review this film. I’m a big fan of independent horror but lately most of the independent horror coming out either haven’t been very good or haven’t really been independent, at least in my opinion. There’s become a big push in indie-horror to just go straight for the shock value instead of making a good movie, don’t get me wrong, I love to be shocked but I like a good story as well. Many of the rest just don’t come across as truly independent to me (big budget + major actors = not independent). The Perfect House is not only true indie-horror, but one of the better indie film’s I’ve seen in a while.
{Here I thought I was the only one who had these in my basement}
There’s a lot done right here that helps make this movie great, so I’ll just go over them piece by piece.
-The first thing to impress me, and next to the dialogue it was the most impressive thing about this movie, was the acting. The talent here is amazing and I was massively astonished by more than a few. I won’t say they carried the movie because they really didn’t have to but they did really help knock it up to a whole other level. A few notables were Alex Markousis who plays the daughter stuck in the basement during the storm, for her young age she pulls of cold, internalized rage perfectly, looking placid and emotionless as she disposes of some chopped up “organic matter”. Holly Greene also does a wonderful job as the caged victim of a madman, pulling off “crazy bitch” with enough talent to really convince the audience that this chick is off her fucking rocker. Dustin Stevens plays such a creepy neighbor I actually cringed as I waited for his next outburst, he goes between perfectly calm and explosively angry seamlessly and the thing I liked best about his performance was the fact that his calm persona was so much more unnerving than his angry persona. The last two I want to mention are Felissa Rose (who you may remember as Angela from Sleepaway Camp) with her heartbreaking performance of a mother losing her children, she’s spot on, and the other is Jonathan Tiersten (who played Angela’s cousin Ricky in Sleepaway Camp) who puts forth a very interesting role as a sadistic psychopath. Out of all the actors who took part in The Perfect House there was only one actor who didn’t pull of their part very well and whose performance bugged the shit out of me and that was Holly Greene’s fellow cage mate Hans Hernke. He spends most of his time screaming and crying and while this would probably be what someone in his position would do, the actor doesn’t cry very well and doesn’t really come across as terrified. He reminded me of Barbara from the original Night of the Living Dead and that chick actually annoyed me less.
-I’ve always thought dialogue was one of the most important parts to a film if not the most important part. You could have a great film and the whole thing can be ruined by poorly written dialogue, I’ve seen it dozens of time; on the opposite of that, I’ve seen less than stellar movies made better by great dialogue (though I do have to admit, there have been a few amazing films where not a single word is spoken, Quest for Fire comes to mind). I loved the dialogue in The Perfect House, it was extremely well written. It can go from witty to sarcastic to serious to psychopathic even to philosophical all in the span of minutes. They nailed it in this department.
-I was a big fan of the story and how it played out. It’s not an easy thing to make a movie where three stories revolving around one centralized story and still have it come out coherent, but The Perfect House is not only coherent but comes together as one cohesive story by the end. Not only that but there are quite a few torture scenes that outdo anything you’d see in the god awful Saw or Hostel franchise. Why? Because the torture scenes actually have a point and tie into the story, not just “I’m pissed cause I’m dying” or “I have enough money to torture people” but good points that border near philosophical. The last thing about the story that I liked was how the house where everything was happening wasn’t possessed or a center of evil but just a house, albeit a house where horrible things had happened, but just a house none the less. It made for a much more interesting film than the normal haunted house fare.
-There was also the disturbing atmosphere of the film that kept the movie dark, anxiety ridden, and unsettling. The creepy feel of the film keeps you on your toes the entire time; even during those moments when you’re dealing with the house hunting couple it’s impossible to relax because you’re waiting for what’s coming next and that feeling goes from beginning to end. The lighting was another disquieting aspect to the film, they always keep it dark, not dark enough to keep the watcher from actually seeing what’s going on, but dark enough that you understand the darkness inherent in this film.
-The last thing I want to touch on are the effects, effects that are actually a bit better than some of the big budget effects I’ve seen lately in the theatres (proving yet again, CGI isn’t all it’s cracked up to be). The effects department for The Perfect House did an amazing job and I look forward to seeing what they can do in the future.
All in all, this is a great movie, one that is extremely creepy (in case you haven’t yet seen how many times I used the word already). I’d recommend to anyone looking for a great horror flick to give this one a shot, I think you’ll be impressed.
The_Undead_Review
Directed By: Kris Hulbert (First Timers) and Randy Kent (Life of Lemon)
Starring: Felissa Rose (Silent Night Zombie Night, Sleepaway Camp), Dustin Stevens, and John Philbin (Return of the Living Dead, Children of the Corn)
Released By: Gratwick Films and Prime Films
Release Year: 2012
Release Type: Straight to Video
MPAA Rating: Unrated
1 Comment
[...] “I loved the dialogue in The Perfect House, it was extremely well written. It can go from witty to sarcastic to serious to psychopathic even to philosophical all in the span of minutes. They nailed it in this department.” Read More. [...]