The Scarehouse

"The Scarehouse" is yet another example as to what is wrong with the Canadian film industry. The biggest reason as to why the movie fails can be seen in its credits. The person who is given credit for the direction (Gavin Michael Booth) not only directed the movie, he is given credit for the script, editing, and as one of the movie's producers. The Canadian government loves to fund movie projects by "auteurs", even though there are very few people in the Canadian film industry (or film industries in other countries, for that matter) that can successfully take on more that one role on the production of a movie. Obviously, there was really no one on board this movie project that could interfere with Booth's vision, and as a result, this movie fails like so many vanity productions. The characters in the movie are all repulsive, the narrative is garbled, and the production values (such as with bargain basement cinematography and lighting) are absolutely rock bottom... among many other problems. While I'm glad that the Canadian government is starting to fund more commercial movies instead of just art house dramas, they still don't seem to understand that the bulk of the movies they are choosing to fund (regardless of genre) simply are doomed to failure because they are badly conceived vanity projects. Unless the Canadian government changes their policy, Canadians will continue to ignore their filmmakers' films.

Sorority girls have set up a scarehouse for Halloween. Non of these girls are compelling. It's hazing style revenge torture. It's not scary nor compelling because nobody cares about any of them. It's low budget. There is one or two moments where it's so bad that it's kinda fun.

Honestly at a loss to all the 1 star reviews, to say the least. I prefer to start any movie with default/neutral 5 and go from there, and have never dropped below 3 (for House of Fears, an utterly lifeless Halloween flick that somehow rates higher than this...)

I've seen plenty of Halloween-based flicks and this is definitely on the upper range, with most being passable 5s or slightly positive 6. I'd rate this 8 along with Rob Zombies Halloween (Carpenter original getting 10).

It is essentially torture porn as two girls enact a plan of torture kill revenge. Some of the scenes become quite uncomfortable, but I can't see this being any worse than Saw, which has a much higher rating? Granted their justification for such, revealed slowly throughout, is arguably weak compared to what is likely an overkill of revenge. In any event, it's just a movie, they were wronged but by varying degrees amongst their victims, and 2 years in jail didn't seem to help their state of mind.

The film is what it is, and it does what it does with a certain stylish quality. The performances were solid all around, there are some nice Halloween-styled visuals, and the quality of film and music were above average for most Halloween films (granted the more modern ones have all seemingly reached a rather consistent tone here).

If the trailer strikes your fancy, you'll probably enjoy it. Another review very apt in "Mean Girls meets Saw." Reminded me of a behind the scenes/inverted take on Scream or Scream 2 in which we follow instead the killers point of view of events. Strangely enough it also felt at times like an alternative "Ginger Snaps" sequel in which the two sisters have averted lycan encounters and matured their outcast duet into a Halloween murder house (the one looks very much like the dark haired sis, and the other is even Ginger-esque and more often is the one pushing their plans moral boundaries).

This started off ok. I had to figure out the story since it was done with flashbacks. The two culprits were just as much as fault as the others. Instead of moving on, they want revenge. I wanted so bad for someone to kill them first. Very unlikeable characters as I wanted them to just go away. Sorry, the story line was old and nothing but a bunch of women cussing and talking dirty. I don't understand why anyone would join or try to join a sorority. Seems they are the evil students at school. I can see why they went to jail and not the others. They od the guy by using too much. Then they acted like fools. It was better than I thought it was going to be. Just don't expect much. Oh yeah, bad acting.

Everyone saying this is the worst movie are exaggerating a lot, it's good for a teenage petty drama slasher film and I enjoyed the overall plot and the acting. But everyone knows it's a made for TV type of late night film. Never expected it to be oscar worthy. I'd honestly recommend it to people who like gory movies or psychological gory horror flicks. Also the ending was a bit of a cool twist though not super shocking, still was more interesting than I assumed it would end.