House of Last Things

This flick will take you places you have never been before AND sometimes it's even crazy hilarious, the dialog I mean, especially some of the stuff coming out of the mouth of that trailer trash guy, Jerry! The intention here doesn't seem to be "let's just scare the crap out the audience and cash in", but let's make them think a little, sometimes a lot, and take them for a cool twisted ride in the process. And by the way, the photography is damn impressive for a little indie movie. Same cameraman who shot the Bad Lieutenant and the TV series The Medium. I agree with some of the other reviewers here though. Not a lot of blood if that's what you're after. Saw it at the Portland Film Festival and I'm glad I did!

What makes a good genre film for me is if the director and writer, in this case one and the same, can immerse me believably into a world I haven't walked before, enough in fact for me to turn off my cell phone. This movie is very seductive in that it doesn't play out within the tired cliché of a creepy old house and keeps you guessing throughout, building something like a narrative maze not unlike the famous Kubrick garden maze in The Shining. However, I don't think it's really fair or correct to compare this director with his obvious linage, Hitchcock, Lynch, DePalma, etc. as mentioned by so many other reviewers. This is a director with a mind of his own, quite willing to go his own way inside a genre that has been sabotaged over the years by too many under-schooled directors flooding the screen with blood and gore indiscriminately. This one surprised me. Much better than I expected.

Not sure how i came across this particular film, whether it was recommended by a friend or found on an IMDb list, but I would like to point out that i am NOT a friend or family member of the film maker, and just spent nearly two hours watching a great film, quite by chance.

Then i came here and read all these terrible reviews, probably from people that think that Die Hard is the pinnacle of intelligent film making. Calling it Lynchian would be unfair to the film maker - only David Lynch is allowed to be Lynchian, anyone else getting that description is usually a pile of crap! Having said that there were definite Lynch moments, although more often than not it reminded me very much of Luis Buñuel more than anyone.

The main thing i found interesting about this was the editing and the way it wafted in between characters / scenarios / continents with the help of a little light classical. These tricks have occasionally been done before, but like i said, not so much since the days of surrealism. They were certainly refreshing for a modern flick, and were effective and occasionally disturbing.

To all the people who talked this interesting film down - there is more than one way to tell a story, it doesn't always have to be literal, and i guess that you're perhaps too stupid to appreciate something more impressionistic? Good luck with the next intallment of Harry Potter.

And thanks to the film maker, can't wait for your next one, or the one after - am fairly sure you have at least one masterpiece in you, maybe more.

I got suckered in to it again.

Red some where this was a horror but IMDb says it's a thriller.

It is more accurate but for me it was a thriller that didn't thrill.

The effects where laughable and no way up to date to todays standards.

It is like 'the possession of Michael King' a whole lot of silliness,no real content and payed people saying it's something good.

I'm getting quite good at spotting these films so in the future I will be writing less of 'm simply because I don't wanna waste my time on them.

Besides it is also difficult to write 10 lines on a movie where nothing really happens.

It's not worthy to write a lot about it. having said that....

Never wrote a review before and will probably never do it again, unless it's to stop using IMDb as a source of miss-leading people to watch a horrible movie like this one. The whole value of the movie is terrible. I'm what you would call a film fanatic so I watch pretty much everything and yes I have seen worse then this, but if you are an average viewer who wants an average flick just stay away from this one ... if no you can spend the first 15 minutes watching and instantly know why i wrote this .... you have been warned. Hope I help to put the film in the spot where it should be and that's definitely below 5/10. I urge others who have seen these to write what they think about it as well so we can help others avoid this.

Thank you all.