House of the Devil

Director: Ti West (2009)

Starring: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

In association with Final Girl's neat Film Club thing comes a retrofitted re-review of House of the Devil. Because writing a new one would've been far too much like work. It's a movie that, had Ti West made it in the 80s, we'd probably regard it as a classic by now. It's very much a movie that feels like it could have been directed by John Carpenter and starred Jamie Lee Curtis or PJ Soles. House of the Devil is a knowing yet entirely straight throwback to the babysitter-in-peril slasher movies of the late 70s/early 80s.

It's even set back in 1980s' America. Samantha (Donahue) is your typical skint college student. After agreeing to rent a house from Dee Wallace, hard-up Sam realises that she can't actually afford it. In order to make ends meet, she takes on a babysitter job as advertised on campus grounds. Only things aren't as they seem. There's no baby, for one. But to describe the movie's events any further would be cruel of me, since the various twists and turns need to be experienced with an unspoiled mind to work fully. After all, House of the Devil only has about three or four tricks up its sleeve.

At its best, House of the Devil is very good. At its worst, it's merely a bit mediocre. The acting is very good, particularly from Donahue. She's cute and all sorts of adorable - arguably the movie's second strongest suit. The best thing about it? The style and tone painstakingly set up by West. It looks and feels like an authentic old-school slasher movie as inspired or directed by John Carpenter. Right down to its synth-rock soundtrack, House of the Devil is pitch perfect. To add to the effect, there's even a VHS version available. It's this remarkable attention to detail that saves it from becoming just another lazy piece of STD dross. Like Babysitter Wanted, there's more at work than you might expect from just hearing the synopsis.

Ironically, it's that attention to detail that holds the movie back from greatness. Too much is predictable. There are a few mild surprises in the setup and the tension racks up nicely, but there's nothing you won't have seen before (and back in the 80s', to boot). Its gorefest finale provides a nice change of pace, but is all a bit overwrought and melodramatic.

Still, it has a heart and ambition that's hard to fault. House of the Devil might have its problems, but it tries too damn hard for any horror fan to dislike. This is one that deserves watching a few times: once for the plot, and again to revel in the 80s' trashiness of it all. Savour House of the Devil. After all, they don't make 'em like this anymore.

Halloween (1978)

Director: John Carpenter (1978)

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, PJ Soles, Nancy Loomis

Find it online: IMDB, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Haddonfield, Illinois. Young Michael Myers murders his family with a knife that’s as sizeable as it is sharp. Deciding that he’s evil, the doctors lock the kid up in a mental institution for the rest of his days. Or at least, they try to. All growed up, Michael Myers affects himself an escape and returns back to Haddonfield. Doctor Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) sets out hunting down his evil ex-patient, all the while telling everyone he meets just how evil Michael is. Back at Myers’ childhood home, nubile babysitter Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is looking after wee tot Tommy Doyle (who’d grow up to be friend-of-a-Friend Paul Rudd in H6). But as she’s soon to find out, Michael is pretty intent on murderising her.

Obviously, you knew that already. You don’t have to be a horror fan to like John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is the beauty of it. It’s more than your average sleazy, stupid slasher movie. It’s an exercise in tension, so well executed that it transcended its boundaries to become widely and rightfully acknowledged as one of the greatest horror movies ever made.

Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful Psycho and a few lesser slasher movies (such as the mightily underrated Black Christmas), Carpenter delivers what many would call the perfect slasher movie – one which has been often imitated but rarely bettered. Everything from the iconic theme tune down to his framing and use of the Shape’s POV is brilliantly done. Like the similarly influential Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the gore is sparse. The violence comes in bursts. But you know all this already, don’t you??

The casting is perfect. A young Jamie Lee Curtis appeals as babysitter Laurie, and PJ Soles brings her boobies to the proceedings. whilst Blofeld himself is a great foil for Michael. For a bit of synchromisticist fun*, note this: Donald Pleasence’s Blofeld directly inspired the Austin Powers movies’ Dr. Evil… played in turn by one Mike Myers. In this movie, Loomis faces off against Michael Myers. Coincidence? Yes. Look, shut up. I’m just trying to be semi-original here. D'you know how many people have reviewed Halloween over the years??

If there is a fault with Halloween (and horror-reviewing conventions requires me to say that there isn't) then it’s down to the many imitations that've come out since. Being one of the original slasher templates, the movie might feel slow and predictable to first-time viewers. You won’t have a hard time guessing what’s coming next, due to the fact that so many other works have done it so many times since. But such is the case with so many other significant works – such is the peril of being so influential. Still, Halloween stands up extremely well for a film of its age. Michael Myers is still an effective bogeyman – Carpenter largely hides him in the shadows and uses him wisely – and the tension is still expertly cranked. Anyone who ignores this seminal piece of work simply because of its age doesn’t deserve to be calling themselves a horror fan anyway.

* The word ‘fun’ is used here in a highly subjective context, and may not actually be fun.

Babysitter Wanted

First published June 2009

Director: Jonas Barnes & Michael Manasseri (2008)

Starring: Sarah Thompson, Matt Dallas, Bill Moseley

Find it online: IMDB

Not actually half as awful – or even as unoriginal - as its recycled cover art might suggest, Babysitter Wanted is a rare example of STD movie making done well.

Deja vu, anyone?

Taking its cues from that familiar urban legend – y’know, the one with the babysitter receiving prank phone calls from inside the house - Babysitter Wanted starts off as one thing, and ends up being something completely different. Strangely enough, this weathered horror fan wasn’t at all bored, and (as he often tends to do during STD productions) didn’t fast-forward through a single scene.

College student Angie (a cute Sarah Thompson) is hired by a seemingly average, All-American family to babysit their precocious, stupid-cowboy-hat-wearing kid for the night. As you’d expect, no sooner do the parents clear off, than Angie is receiving disturbing phone calls and hearing things go bump in the night. Just as her stalker decides to attack, the film goes crazy insane.

Roll over for spoilers: Angie’s attacker is a priest, and the child is the son of the Devil. Complete with fucking horns. I shit thee not - the kid is quite literally Hellboy.

With a twist reminiscent of the also-not-shit The Hamiltons, Babysitter Wanted really is worth a viewing or two. Bill Moseley shows up as a surprisingly passive cop, whilst the gore is fun enough to distract from the stupidity of the story’s latter stages. Thompson is nicely cast as Angie, with just enough cutesy about her to keep the viewer rooting for the girl's plight. That said, her character's a Christian, and there's very little that compares with the glorious schadenfreude of watching a goody gumdrops Christian sweetheart (the character's surname is Allbright) being cruelly tormented and stuff. Babysitter Wanted, then, is the modern equivalent of Julius Caesar feeding Christians to lions.

Elsewhere, the acting is passable but largely unexceptional. The story, whilst impressively left-field, may be a touch too looney for some viewers. Your friendly neighbourhood reviewer enjoyed it, but then he does have terrible taste in movies.

So if cheesy, slightly above-average horror flicks rock your boat, you could do much worse than Babysitter Wanted.