MARVEL-LESS MARVISTA: House of the Witch (2017)

Director: Alex Merkin
Writer(s): Neil Elman
Starring: Emily Bader, Darren Mann, Michelle Randolph, and Coy Stewart

If this were from any other studio, House of the Witch would just be another tired retread of the stale “killer entity” theme that's been done to death over the last few years. In the hands of MarVista Entertainment—the studio responsible for many of the weekly Hallmark romance and Lifetime “Stalker of the Week” movies—it's probably the closest thing to a “triumph” that they have ever accomplished.

Don't get me wrong: it's a bad movie. But it's the kind of “bad” every other studio churns out, rather than MarVista's own brand of “bad”: the unintentional laughs are kept somewhat in check, the writing is less lazy than usual, and—dare I say—some of the special effects nearly manage to approach the level of “good”. Hey, “nearly” is closer than most anything else I've seen out of them, so take it as a compliment.

A group of seven high schoolers sneak into a house rumored to be under the spell of a demonic witch. One-by-one, they are picked off in semi-grisly fashion as the witch—who looks like fog when moving--protects her territory. That's it: there are no real twists, no scares, no meaningful character development; it's just a straightforward march toward death for our poor youth.

And yet, there are some things to like here: It's gleefully violent, at least by the studio's conservative standards; occasionally profane (I think a couple of characters might swear); almost sexual; and there are actually a couple of eerie sequences. Now, that's not to say any of it is genuinely scary—the story is far too predictable, and the actors far too...”inexperienced” for anything resembling terror to creep in—but just the fact that the studio responsible for creating total garbage like Work Wife has made something resembling an actual movie is a feat in and of itself.

There are times when MarVista “logic” tries to force itself in, like characters who constantly back up for no reason, throw three eggs at a house and call it an egging, and an awfully protracted scene in a room with a haunt where the main character spins around for about five minutes while loud sounds play on the soundtrack as literally nothing else happens, but they are limited in comparison to most of their other productions.

House of the Witch isn't the type of movie that you can “recommend” to anyone, because that word insinuates it's a movie that they should see, and with legitimately good media being released daily, there's really no reason to settle for anything less. But if you're in the mood for something that you can just pop in, put your brain on autopilot, and forget about immediately after seeing it, there's enough entertainment value contained within—both intentional and unintentional, but mostly the latter—that it should carry you through to the end.

ENTERTAINMENT RATING: 5/10

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