The House of the Devil was directed by Ti West, and stars Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov.
Honestly, I did not like this movie very much. I've been hearing so much about it, about how perfectly it captures the feel of classic seventies and eighties horror, but I honestly think that if this film were made in the eighties, very few people would consider it anything more than a middling example of Killer Satanists sub-genre.
However, this movie does have many visual homage moments that are successful. When Samantha is heading up the stairs with the knife to investigate the noise, the light shines through the spindles of the stair railing, reveling her silhouette. It's a perfect Giallo moment. Similarly, when she wakes up tied over a pentagram, the image is a carbon copy of Hammer Satanism.
Despite this, I can't help feeling it should have been better. The director went through so much trouble to re-create the feel of the classic early eighties film, but the plot is weak in comparison. The movie had so much potential source material to draw from, including the real-life Satanic Ritual scares. This movie should have been the classic that never was, but it never rose above mediocre.
I know that eighties films are not nearly as fast paced as movies today, but literally nothing happens during the rising action of this movie. Samantha dances around the house and orders pizza, then is suddenly frightened by footsteps upstairs. However, she has been told she is watching an able-bodied elderly woman. She shouldn't be surprised when she hears someone moving about the house. I felt like she did a lot of things that didn't make sense.
However, I think the last twenty minutes of the movie were spectacular, but I was so frustrated by Sam's character that I had a hard time appreciating them. I'd recommend this movie, but not without reservations.Horror Homage Aspects: A+
Ending: A+
Film Overall: C
A cool tidbit about this film: They marketed it by releasing special copies on VHS. Awesome!
