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.

"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.

I went down to my local video store and picked this one up. The guy at the desk made me show him my ID before buying this. This is very strange because I've only ever been carded once before at this place (despite buying a bunch of rated R movies). The only other movie I've been carded for was a smut film called Lake Fear 2: The Swamp which ends with a pregnant nude woman being crucified upside down and the fetus is ripped out of her and thrown in a fire. So naturally, I thought I was in for a wild ride on this one. After watching it...I have no idea why I got carded. This movie is way more tame than others I've bought, but that's all besides the point.

Here's a list of notes I took while watching the movie: After watching the opening scene, my friend said "I bet this guy kills that family because the dad threw out the guy's weed wacker." That turns out to be the actual motive.

A couple is in the market for a house. Someone forgot to tell the real estate agent that they aren't shooting a p*rno today.

At one point a brother and sister fight to the death. The girl wins...unrealistic. I appreciate the twist, but this would not be the outcome in real life.

Love the makeup work on the guy who got his eyelids cut off. Every time they show his stupid-wide gaze is hilarious.

It seems the writer of this movie hates women. Seriously, the women are called derogatory and misogynistic terms before getting killed in a brutal fashion. Like for real...where does this writer get off?!

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.

I never once knew what the hell was going on in this movie, but the guy with no eyelids was disgusting.

The name of this movie should have been "Weed Whacker."