The Houses October Built (2014)

Running Time: 91 minutes

Release Date: October 10, 2014

Review by: Stacey

I'm one of the few that actually enjoys a good found footage film (see: GOOD) and I'll get down on any film that is centered around the Halloween holiday itself.  After much internet buzz, my old man and I decided to sit our asses down and rent The Houses October Built, not to be confused by the documentary bearing the same title by the same director.  By the end credits, we were more disappointed than spooked.

The film follows 5 friends in an RV on their search to find the scariest, most authentic haunted house attractions.  After several duds and a few upset locals, it's becoming more apparent that they've stumbled on something truly scary.  And it's all too real.

It's such a bummer that I wasn't a huge fan of this film because it had a concept that isn't used often enough.  Save for your usual carnival/circus gems, not many films really focus on the haunted house attraction aspect, let alone take you through real ones.  It came off like a documentary in a lot of parts, especially when news footage shown drives it into the audience that a lot of them don't do background checks on the workers so hey, bad things happen sometimes.  Oooh, ~foreshadowing~.

They're basically on a quest for a group called "The Blue Skeleton" who are known in the underground haunt scene (is this even a real thing?) to take you on some fucked up haunted ride.  It's like a search for the ever-elusive snuff film, only not as illegal.

 Found footage isn't a horrible genre like every one thinks it is.  It's the shitty found footage films that kill it.  The Houses That October Built is no exception, sadly.  I understand we're watching a film taken from a POV aspect, so the extremely shaky parts were expected, but a lot of the intense scenes were hard to focus on when the camera is held down in the hands of someone running through dark hallways.  I'm not even going to go into the audio quality because it just wasn't good.  I understand the main characters all played "themselves" and they didn't do a hack job but I didn't find myself attached to any one person in particular.  

On the brightside, the clowns were pretty creepy (when aren't they) when they weren't talking to you in deep Southern accents, and the porcelain faced girl (yes, the one in all the movie stills) is pretty damn disturbing looking.  After a while, though, we got pretty bored when nothing was spooking us and the film didn't seem to go anywhere.  When the ending rolls around, I wasn't as shocked as the filmmakers might've wanted us to be; maybe I'm desensitized to what a lot of people think is "crazy" or "fucked up", but this was pretty tame.

Would I recommend this to any of my friends?  Probably not.  "But Stacey, I'm bored and it sounds cool!" Well, fine, go ahead!  But don't say I didn't warn you.

1/5 murderous clowns are after you

 

What do I know, right?  Check out the trailer below if you're still interested!