Writer(s): Johnstone
Starring: Morgana O'Reilly, Rima Te Wiata, Glen-Paul Waru, and Ross Harper
Kylie Bucknell (played by the peculiarly beautiful Morgana
O’Reilly) is a junkie and a thief; she is easily caught after her attempt at
robbing an ATM amounts to little more than a comedy of errors. Her lawyer recommends to the judge that she
be sent to a rehabilitation center, but the judge points to a long list of
attempted rehabilitation that seems to have done nothing for her. Instead, he suggests that what she really
needs is some stability, so he has a different plan for her: Sending her off
for an eight month house arrest at the home of her mother.
Of course, they don’t really get along; Kylie ran away from
home and the thought of returning isn’t her ideal situation. But without any other options, she is more or
less forced to deal with it. But
something isn’t quite right in the home.
There are noises, for instance, that seem to come from inside the walls,
doors open and close, seemingly of their own volition, and electronics turn off
and on, at random. In other words, it’s
your typical haunted house movie--only it isn’t.
“Housebound” twists and turns its way from one dumb plot
revelation to another, and when it’s all said and done, it doesn’t really
amount to much. We learn fairly early on
(SPOILER WARNING) that there is no actual ghost in the house, and with that
little revelation, the element of the supernatural and mysterious is thrown out
the window and, along with it, so are the scares. (END SPOILER) Eventually, the truth is revealed, and the
final thirty minutes basically devolve into your typical slasher movie.
A handful of reviews I’ve read claimed the ending is super
violent and bloody; don’t go in expecting that, or you will be sorely
disappointed. I sure was. After an overlong, fairly predictable first
half, I was looking forward to seeing gallons of the red stuff flowing
everywhere, figuring it would be the movie’s way of rewarding us for sticking
with it. Instead, there are a couple
near-bloodless deaths, a couple more attacks, and then that’s about it. Housebound doesn’t even have the audacity
to throw us any curveballs: it ends way too tidily for my liking, and adamantly
refuses to kill off any of the main characters.
To put it bluntly, everyone you expect to live, lives, while the only
characters that die are the minor ones that are clearly expendable.
Its main saving grace, besides the fact that it never sucks,
is the seamless mix of humor and horror.
While I didn’t find the movie particularly scary (it uses the same
fright tactics that most horror films utilize), it did make me laugh at a few
parts. I was initially baffled as to how director Gerard Johnstone drew
comparisons to Peter Jackson, the indie auteur that specialized in low budget
gorefests (before becoming a Hollywood darling by helming The Lord of the
Rings trilogy), until the ending, when he throws in the same style of
slapstick physical humor during the film’s final confrontation. Johnstone undoubtedly has talent, and I will
be anxious to see future efforts from him, but if Housebound turns out to be
his biggest accomplishment as a director, I’d say his career is a huge
disappointment.
RECAP: It’s not very scary, and it gets more and more
predictable as the story rolls along, but if nothing else, Housebound shows
that writer/director Gerard Johnstone has loads of potential. The performances are pretty good across the
board, and it’s clearly well-made, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it’s
all been done before, and much better, elsewhere. Of course, that’s true of most movies, but for
a movie that’s at least 20 minutes overlong, there is simply not enough of a
reward for sticking this one out.
RATING: 5/10
TRAILER
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