The House of Violent Desire

You will have to see a lot of movies before you see one that is as badly acted as this one. All of the cast, and I do mean every last one of them are comedically bad and laughably awful. I don't entirely think it is all their fault. That is because the script is the worst since cavemen drew on walls.

The film is a basic haunted house horror romp that, to be fair to it, has some decently scary scenes that never pay off because of what laughable nonsense follows it.

It is difficult to know whether or not the production is hamstrung by the lack of money or the lack of talent. I am going to go out on a limb and say it is both. Avoid.

This movie gets worse by the minute, but if you happen to like nicely framed shots and unusual lighting, you may want to watch. The plot begins fairly decently, but transgresses into pure silliness about an hour in, the whole time seeming like a lengthy episode of DARK SHADOWS from the 1960s--a show I watched as a child. 2 stars for good filming techniques.

First the good. Fantastically shot. A good music score. Great camera work. Fabulous lighting. But next the why. Why oh why oh why woukd you go to all this effort and then cast so badly. At least 4 of the 'actors' can't act. I mean hardly at all. It is an intriguing film for about 30. Minutes, but the bad delivery of lines takes you out of it when you think you might be getting drawn in. The location is amazing. But film ultimately doesn't deliver. A real shame as given the crew talent on this it deserves better. I could have made a truly epic Satanic movie given all these option. I've no idea how much it cost but it looks much better than it's obvious low budget deserves. I just don't understand why the director chose to make this story and cast (some) of these people. The production team could have spent their talent and time much better.

2 hours loss. You will have two questions at the end of the movie, 1. Why 2. What

Nearly two hours... TWO HOURS!

This film started firmly in the 7 rating then went to a 6 and rapidly to a 4 and ended up at 3 after two hours of torturous viewing.

It's not that it's a bad concept, and it seems some effort has gone into the intention to make a decent film, the problem is the intention just doesn't translate in to the reality of what this film could be, or have been.

I was hoping that this was going to be a good British horror and at least live up to the hype - but it is neither.

It feels like a local amateur dramatic club has cobbled together some cash to make a project film.

The majority of the acting is wooden and strained and really fails bring the characters or story to life, or to engage the viewer. It's not necessarily that the actors are bad at acting. It could equally be that the director has not taken the time to either relay what they expect or are too busy rushing through scenes to pay attention to detail and give the actors what they need for best performance.

There are obviously one or two actors who have great potential, and may well have theatre experience, but without proper direction their skill is not being allowed to come through in character in this film.

The film looked visually promising to begin with, but like other things, rapidly became fairly ridiculous for the period the film is supposed to be set in. Some scenes were visually perfect and interesting, while the majority just seem to be shots where the camera was set on automatic and to hell with taking time to get the lighting right. It really wouldn't have taken that much effort or time to make a few fundamental changes.

The same with the sound. In some scenes it is clear that thought has been given to recoding and balancing the mix, while in others (ironically usually when there was substance to a character's dialogue) it was difficult to separate dialogue from the overpowering volume of music or the far over/misused sound of thunder - which just became annoying in the end. Sound quality also seemed to be a serious issue with medium to long shots often sounding like it had been recorded with a baked bean tin.

Next up - prop interaction. Oh my goodness, someone wasn't paying attention.

There are times when the characters interact with props in a way which is obviously wrong, if not downright amateurish and stupid. Without using spoilers I can't really give examples, not that I would have to for anyone half-awake watching this film.

Overall, this film looked as though it might be a good watch. If the people who made this film were as good as the hype they wrote then this would be brilliant. Unfortunately, this seems to be (yet) another example of people with too much spare cash and a woeful lack of skill and attention to detail thinking they can do something they obviously can't.

Perhaps they are more suited to shooting family videos with an iPhone.

As for the 10 ratings - they are obviously false.