HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET (2012)

HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET (2012)

Just noticing my reviews this year for 31 DAYS OF MADNESS (October) have been pretty much all over the place. 80’s, 90’s, 00’s, and even just this year. HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET probably would have been better named “HOUSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD” or just plain “HOUSE NEXT DOOR”. Anyway, this movie is really really strong in a lot of areas that some don’t consider horror. I think this is an ignorant statement especially if you categorize movies like “PSYCHO” as horror (and you should).  

Jennifer Lawrence (THE HUNGER GAMES) and Elisabeth Shue along with Max Thieriot (JUMPER) carry this movie into darkness and some haunting emotional depths that make this thing work however, we do have a LOT of gaps in reason, the reaction of the town, all kinds of things. Essentially our main character moves in next door to and quickly starts to fall in love with the dude who lives in a gigantic house where his parents were murdered next door.

Jennifer plays Elissa in this who just isn’t all that bright. She blows off one complete jerk and now wants to tag around with a dude who thinks nothing of living by himself (not really) in the same house his parents were murdered in? Tacky, tacky I tell you. There are a NUMBER of other issues with this film that I am sure you will pick up when watching it.

1) The key on the door scene, why not sooner?

2) Seemingly no investigation of the original crime.

3) The cop and his gun location scene.

4) The super-fast recovery to sedatives scene and so on.

Anyway for just wanting to see something that is emotionally and story-telling wise, pretty jacked up, then HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET should cut it on most nights. I just would not put it in your Halloween marathon watch list. So many better films suit that purpose. 

Overall HATES gets a solid 5 out of 7. As much as I didn’t like the topic, there was enough here to like and Jennifer does an outstanding job. 

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