The Perfect House

"I'd go so far as to call The Perfect House one of the most pointless, soulless, ugly, and disgusting horror films of the past ten years...and that's precisely what these filmmakers are after." - Scott Weinberg, FEARnet

Mr. Weinberg's comments are so dead-on, I just had to repeat them. I wished I'd read his review before I wasted $5 on this sub-amateurish torture-porn farce that's really only tolerable when it's making fun of itself, which unfortunately isn't often enough.

The Perfect House is something like a car wreck: a film so poorly acted, so abominably shot and edited that most times you simply can't believe what you're seeing. It's hard to look away from because you can't imagine any filmmaker would expect this tripe to be taken seriously. And that's just the technical aspect.

This is a cobbled-together home-made POS with not one shred of redeeming value as a horror film (or any film). These "filmmakers" are not movie lovers. It's doubtful whether they've even seen a movie or maybe are just incompetent at operating the $200 software package they obviously used to edit with (after they recorded it on their five-year-old Handycam). No, these people are hucksters pure and simple. They know they're pulling one over on you and worse, they want you to know it. Either that, or they are dumber than they obviously assume that you are.

Here's a quick run-down of the film's "plot": It's an Anthology film (of course...since all the 'plots' are ludicrously flimsy and clichéd, unable to sustain a full length film certainly) about an "evil" house that drives ordinary people to commit murderous acts (weak attempts at the type of black humor horror done quite well in EC Comics stuff like "Creepshow"). Almost all the segments feature ridiculously hollow, hammy villains who mete out particularly vile tortures for no reason...to many children, no less. I guess they couldn't get away with torturing animals, thank god. There are few good "effects" --- most of the violence is done in cutaway or is blurred or sped-up to mask the VFX guys incompetence or the lack of budget. Speaking of budget, what ghetto did they film this supposed "dream house" in?

Yes, TPH is gory, gross, and nauseating. Some of the best horror films are. What they are not, is puerile, shoddily made, and insulting. Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, this is not. It's not even fourth-rate swill like "Don't Look in the Basement" or a camp horror film that's a pleasure because it is so bad (the "Sleepaway Camp" films featuring Felissa Rose, who does scream well here). These guys might be able to daydream about being that good one day, but they'll probably just wind up watching these other films on cable.

Just because a film has no money doesn't mean it has to suck. But that requires technique, good camera set-ups, and actors who actually are capable of and want to do a decent job. Oh yes, and a script whose lines aren't complete recycled garbage from bad '60s drive-in fare and actually reflect how people speak, with hints to their characters' motivations and back stories and....

What's the point? If you agree that those things are important, run as fast as you can from this film. It is a dangerous piece of "art" --- simply because making it a success will no doubt egg on other charlatans to follow the money trail with yet another poorly made con job.

The Perfect House is a 2013 horror anthology film directed by Kris Hulbert (First Timers) & Randy Kent (Ten Cent Hitman, Life, Death and Mini-Golf, Life of Lemon, & Shadow of the Monarch). Newlyweds, Mike (played by: William A. Robertson from The Rising & Black Marigolds) & Marisol (played by: Andrea Vahl from First Timers & Criminal Intention) take a tour of their dream house. The frisky Real Estate Agent (played by: Monique Parent from Vicious Kiss, Mirror, Mirror III, James Dean: Race with Destiny, & Jurassic City) is willing to do anything to sell this house. They find out that their perfect house has a brutal & unsettling past.

The history of this house of horrors is revealed during three different generations of cursed families that suffered through this hell in this unlucky environment. "The Storm" is the story of a dysfunctional family (Kris Smith from Lady Krampus & My Friend Dahmer, Timothy Dugan from FrightWorld & Prisoners of the Dead, Michael Wagner, & Alex Victoria) trying to survive deadly weather outside in their basement for shelter. Unfortunately, the storm is the least of this families worries when it comes to destruction. Hidden secrets & verbal abuse haunt this unit. Sometimes kids can only take so much from their parents.

"Chic-Ken" is a tale of the unknown serial killer & real life monster John Doesy (played by: Jonathan Tiersten from Sleepaway Camp, Return to Sleepaway Camp, Blood Reservoir, & Terror Tales). He can't control his crazy urges as his body count starts to grow. The evil that exists but no one recognizes him for what he really is. One victim (played by: Holly Greene from The Cutting Room) is lasting longer than the others. She's his "muse" & only audience to his unforgettable acts. Can she escape this madness or is she starting to enjoy it too much?

"Dinner Guests" is the final demented warning of this bad location. Mom (played by: Felissa Rose from Sleepaway Camp, Return to Sleepaway Camp, Victor Crowely, Death House, Silent Night, Zombie Night, & Dahmer vs. Gacy) & Dad (played by: John Philbin from The Return of the Living Dead, Children of the Corn, Point Break, & Tombstone) with their kids just made the wrong choice. Never trust a neighbor, always return their garden tools, & eat at home. Sometimes that normal looking guy (played by: Dustin Stevens from R. S. V. P., Keepers of the Light, & Pastor Damien) next door isn't exactly all there. A routine situation such as a meal can turn into a living nightmare. What happens when that mask of sanity slips off & it can end up dangerous when real dark desires are shown behind closed doors.

I am a big fan of horror anthologies & The Perfect House didn't disappoint. The anthology film is a great opportunity to mix sub genres into one production. You get a little bit of everything in this including survival, torture, revenge & the evil house that changes everyone in it's environment. I appreciated that each segment had a different dark angle to provide for it's overall presentation. "Chic-Ken" & "Dinner Guests" were tied for my favorites from this movie. It was good to see a mini reunion for Sleepaway Camp & Return to Sleepaway Camp co-stars despite being in separate stories. Both Felissa Rose & Jonathan Tiersten gave their best performances in The Perfect House. This is a very mean spirited movie, it's full of unlikable characters that you don't care what happens to them. Which is good considering how gruesome & insane this is. Fans of hardcore gore & nasty special effects will be very pleased by The Perfect House!!!!

An excellent film. This has been made for horror fans by this legendary filmmaker. This film should be seen more often and taught in film schools. I wish I was a fly on the wall to witness the art of crafting such a brilliant thing.

This an anthology horror film about a sexy female realtor (Monique Parent, who appeared in countless softcore porn films in the 90's) showing a young couple house where all kinds of horrible things have happened. It's basically the same plot as Hammer's "The House that Dripped Blood" (and the John Ritter TV movie "Terror Tract"). The first story is the best. It's about a very messed-up family--the mother is mentally ill and off her meds, the father may be sleeping with the daughter, and the son has become murderously resentful. It all blows up when they're forced to seek shelter down in the basement during a storm (with a whole lot of knives). I've noticed that when they treat the subject of incest in movies, they're often so circumspect about it that they ironically don't make it nearly as ugly as it would be in real life. It also may be a little hypocritical here because they prominently display this alleged teen incest victim in her underwear (although I seriously doubt the actress is really young a teen). On the other hand, I did appreciate that the subject is treated with some ambiguity and subtlety because NOTHING ELSE in this movie is.

I hate to describe the last two stories as sheer "torture porn" because I really don't like that term. Most people watch horror and porn for completely different reason. Still, the second story is pretty much just unrelenting sadism about a serial killer who tortures and murders victims of both sexes in his basement and has kept one woman alive to periodically sexually assault, but mostly watch him kill the others. This is hard to take very seriously because the acting isn't very believable and there's zero character development, but it did make me question why I was watching this in the first place. When torture goes on long enough, it isn't really "horror" anymore; the term "porn" is not really accurate because only a very disturbed person is going to get turned on by this, but there is something unpleasant and definitely not very fun about it.

The third story, unfortunately, is more of the same except the victims are a whole family (with yet another teenage girl stripped to her underwear) being victimized by their crazy older neighbor. This segment has the only "name" actor in Felissa Rose, who played the transgendered killer in "Sleepaway Camp". I think anybody with a family will find this really hard to watch, and the ending is definitely harder to take than the second. But there is SOME black humor here because the neighbor is set off when the father forgets to return his weed-whacker! Still, it's less funny when he sets on the teen daughter for being scantily clad and promiscuous. I don't know what he has against the younger children. The movie shatters some cinematic taboos here, but it really does it just to do it.

Overall though, I wouldn't describe this movie as offensive, and it certainly does succeed at being pretty grueling. But it is also pretty puerile, definitely pointless (any point it has usually ends up shoved in someone's eye), and just not a lot of fun.

Most directors have a goal in mind when they make their movie, and if the movie does what it should in terms of entertainment, then we call that movie a success.

Unfortunately for this film, the director makes the mistake of trying to disturb you and terrify you with graphic scenes of torture and gore.

Ho hum. It's been done before, and many times even better than this.

Disturbing the viewer is a good goal in a horror flick. But extended scenes about torture and gore bore-me-half-to-death. When I can flip forward through entire scenes and be like, "Ok, so long story short, she dies this way, he dies that way, killer does this, killer does that.." and get the entire story without actually needing to watch it, then we have a very shallow idea on the screen indeed. I can literally skip entire scenes and miss nothing, and the rest of the movie still makes perfect sense. In other words, there is no point to this movie except extended scenes of suffering and gore. You may skip them or watch them at your discretion, but why bother watching them when they really add nothing? It's really just more gratuitous than effective, and if you are the sort of person who actually enjoys watching it then I suggest you get your head checked.