House of Good and Evil

Those that gave this film a rating of anything above 3 stars (hell that's even too much) should be ashamed. We begin this film with a big question mark as to what the hell is going on, and when we reach the end that question mark is bigger and burning from the anger that you feel from having wasted your time viewing it. It isn't scary. It holds no psychological value. And the only thrill in it would come from the discussion you'll have with whomever you watch it with over how bad it really is. Want to have something to rant about? This is one of those films. Otherwise, and for the benefit of your own sanity, I'd advise those to steer clear!

From the movie poster / movie cover and the story summary, then I had initially expected something entirely different from this movie compared to what it turned out to be.

That being said, then this movie was a snoozefest. Wow, it just dragged on and on forever with a horribly bad storyline. Nothing scary happened throughout the entire course of the movie, and it is only the last 5 minutes of the movie or so that really are of any importance. I will say that director David Mun did manage to pull off the ending quite nicely. However, the rest of the movie, not so much.

The story is about a couple who lost a child during pregnancy while being stuck in traffic in the city. Some time later, they move to a remote countryside, far, far away from any town. The house is grand and seems almost too good to be true. But the idyllic setting soon turns to horror.

As well-intended as the storyline might have been, then it failed on almost every account to accomplish much of anything. And the most scary parts about the movie was the music score, or the fact how utterly dull and slow-paced this movie was.

It should be said that the acting was actually good enough, but the actors and actresses just had next to nothing script-wise to work with.

If you enjoy horrors and thrillers, then there are far better movies out there to sit down and watch.

This is one of those films that makes you say "what?" to the television a lot, partly because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense at times and partly because the sound levels are sometimes inconsistent. You might have to keep fiddling with the volume to follow some of the mumble shots without getting overwhelmed by the background music used to let you know that something suspenseful must have happened. I was often left guessing about that. There's one particular scene in which the trees apparently make rumbling noises of some sort, and the music lets you know that that's very, very scary, whatever it is.

My fiancée fell asleep about 10 minutes into it, which tells you something about the degree to which it merits being included in the "thriller" category. I can sit through almost anything, but I did look it up on IMDb for a bit since there wasn't much going on on the screen. This one would be a hard one to get through in a theater.

It picks up a little bit in the middle, but I can't say there's much reason to stick it out. I suspect that whatever festival buzz it got is because it's sort of about wife abuse, though it's not totally clear what it's trying to say about it, other than that it's bad. Some of the acting is OK.

If I have to choose one genre I choose horror, and as a fan of horror I obviously Watch a lot of horror Movies. Furthermore, as a fan of horror you cannot really have high expectations in general because horror Movies are what they are.

That said, you still expect some degree of quality when you read about the plot and find it interesting, but boy was I disappointed with House of Good and Evil.

Plot: married couple relocates to the countryside trying to salvage their marriage after a tragic loss of their unborn Child.

Many horror Movies have low to medium budget and the creators succeed in various degrees to put out a nice package. This Movie has a "nice package". It is well made, has an intriguing title, decent actors. But...in the end it is quite a bore. The ending is a total disappointment and the writer, to me, probably ran out of gas or suffers from limited imagination.

The title was promising, I expected a totally different turn-out, to be frank, the turn-out was negative. I cannot really write what I expected because then I would spoil the Movie for you.

Negative is also the pacing, in the beginning the "horror" comes on too strong and a bit too early, and after those initial horrific elements they die out and are left hanging and unexplored. Some might classify this as being a red herring and thus being somewhat clever. However, I say you cannot stray too far away from your initial horror elements which should convey where the Movie is going. So...the initial build-up does not equal the ending which I also Think is boring and shows signs of bad imagination and taking the easy way out.

I still give it 4 out of 10 because it has decent actors, standard production values. Qualitywise it is like Whisher, the Unborn, Prophecy 4 & 5, although not of the same sub-genres.

There have been some very positive reviews written here on the House of Good and Evil. I'm really wondering were they watching the same movie or merely part of the production crew. I watched the movie off the back of these reviews and any score over 5 on IMDb is in my opinion worth a try. All this I unfortunately found misleading. This psychological thriller is low on thrills and even less on horror. It was a tall order for the lead actress who is in just about every shot in the movie and I can't say I warmed to the character, who was a difficult character anyway must to the chagrin of my girlfriend who also watched eyes rolling regularly. The rest of the cast were not bad, the old lady was excellent, however there was not too much to go on. As the story panned out to the end I was disappointed to find a twist similar to a British movie I watched but days ago, and it was done better in that movie. I'm afraid it just didn't all add up in the House of Good and Evil and I still don't see the relevance of the name.