Horror Queen

PLOT

Jack and Stephanie are a married couple having some serious problems. We learn this while following them as they drive down an old country road. She’s a singer and when she tries to put her CD on, he freaks out and they bicker about their upcoming marriage counseling session. They stumble across an accident in the road and a feisty cop tells them a “shortcut”. After an accident that cuts their tires, they wander down the road and find an old bed and breakfast and another couple who had a similar accident. The lights go out and they find an old woman named Betty, her son Pete and her husband Stuart who run the inn. They act a little strange, but they’re nothing compared to the Tinman. The Tinman appears outside the house and instantly issues a challenge to the two couples: give him one dead body by sunrise or face his wrath. Each couple has their own ideas of how to get through the night, but no one knows who will be left standing once sun comes…

TRIVIA

Bill Mosley as Stuart has been all over the horror movie map. If you don’t know this guy by now, I want to know why the hell you read my blog.

THOUGHTS

House is interesting because it starts out as your typical slasher movie and then brings in elements of black magic and ghosts. It also lets you learn a little more about the characters as the movie progresses, which is good because in the beginning it’s hard to feel sympathy for any of them. Stephanie for example just seems like a raging bitch, but after awhile you start to feel sorry for her and actually want her to survive.

There’s a reason movies don’t focus on multiple characters and that’s clear in House. Each character has some hidden secret that the Tinman taunts them with throughout the night and it gets hard to follow everyone. Two characters share the same secret, but it’s told from two different angles plus you have two more stories coming out from the other characters. It gets a little confusing at times.

Michael Madsen pops up in the beginning as a cop and then promptly disappears. Just when you think “god is this what his career became?”, he turns up again. I have to admit that between him and the actor playing Jack, I more than had my fill of hot men.

I actually liked House, more than I thought going into it. It has a lot of different elements going on at one time, but they combine together nicely. The ending’s a tiny bit hokey, but considering the rest of the movie, I can deal with that.