Granny's House

Rebecca is hired to keep Marion company by her son. Marion resists the idea that she needs help. Rebecca is charming & breaks through her resolve.

She convinces Marion to post on a site that offers free rooms to traveling strangers. Meeting people is fun. Rebecca loves 'collecting' new friends.

Don't be fooled by the acting. The compelling plot & slow onset of dread overcomes all. A twisted dark story. These sweet ladies can't be trusted.

I am not a friend or family member. I gain nothing by this review. I just hate seeing worthy independent cinema slammed.

It's impressive that this was made outside the constrained studio system. This is not your ordinary thriller. It has a bit of a slow pace but it's deliberate; one doesn't realize they're being drawn into the film until midway through. Rachel Alig plays a perfect, unfeeling sociopath, with utterly emotionless dead eyes; even when her manipulative character "smiles," her eyes don't. "Granny's House" does become almost a very dark comedy of sorts in its third act, and while this feature may not be for everyone, it's worth a look or two.

Saw this movie at its amazing Hollywood Premiere. Love how creepy it is. More movies should have great Leading Ladies!! Wild how it twists and turns and all is a cool house. Surprising how long the sex scenes are. Glenda Morgan Brown who plays Granny delivers a wonderful performance, with lots of depth. Rachel Alig, the other leading lady who plays Rebbecca gave me the chills. It is great how she commands the screen. Ted is a clueless prick portrayed very well by Les Mahoney. Bill Oberest Jr. has such a strong presence, he rocks his scenes. Very different character played here by Bill, the horror star of this century.

Before those defending 'Granny's House' flame me for adding another negative review, this review is coming from somebody who did give 'Granny's House' a fair chance, saw the whole thing and with no prejudice towards the concept (which was actually pretty neat) and genre (actually have a high appreciation for it). Not somebody with a bias against indie/low-budget and watched the film wanting to hate it.

'Granny's House' just didn't do it (close to "do anything") for me, sad because it could have been decent and actually wanted it to be. By all means there are far worse films than 'Granny's House', of the genre, of similar budgets and in general, and don't think that it is a 1-star film. It just wasn't a good film either, liked the concept but it was not executed well on the most part at all.

There are positives. The music has some creepiness and fits reasonably well. There are some nice unsettling shots.

Most of the acting is poor, but Glenda Morgan Brown and Rachel Alig give one hundred percent and do provide moments of tension and scares.

Sadly that can't be said for everybody else, with the rest of the acting being emotionless. Bill Oberst Jr doesn't look like his heart was in it and goes through the motions. The worst case was indeed the actor for the son, an abominably wooden performance.

Creepiness only comes in spurts and tension and suspense are next to nil, thanks to a lot of ridiculousness, dull pacing and excessive predictability that there is just no freshness to the material. The story, taken far too seriously, seldom gets off the ground, momentum takes forever, and the dialogue is stilted throughout. The direction is confused and most of the photography is slapdash and will induce nausea.

In summation, weak but could have been much worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox

The reason I am confused is that I can't see how this film got finance or distribution.

First off, the production is full of technical gaffs - not least in editing. In several places the film has been edited so that the dialogue does not match (or flow in any way) from one shot to another.

There are a few shots where it is obvious 'action' has been called as the actors suddenly go from their start positions into whatever interaction the shot calls for.

In some shots the actor(s) is left in one position and in the next shot the actor is in a different position or pose, even though it is supposed to flow as one.

The acting is strained at the beginning of the film - especially the actor who plays the son - although it does get slightly better as the film progresses - or perhaps I just didn't notice it anymore with so many technical issues and trying to figure out how the edits could possibly have been considered passable.

The whole film is like one big slapped together rush.

The only saving grace is Rachel Alig - who does quite a reasonable job of acting (against the odds I suspect) - and has several half naked scenes (although this seems to be something of a trademark of hers) - which in the end do nothing to alleviate the strain of watching this hacked together set of images.

At first I thought this was some king of home made video, or an experiment by first year film students, but apparently I was wrong. This was supposed to be a proper film.

Never mind. Whatever went wrong in this may be addressed by all those involved when they work on other productions. Hopefully they will see it as a learning curve - never to be repeated.

As for the story - well - it's just not worth going into.