Movie #890: House on Willow Street

House on Willow Street is a horror movie starring Sharni Vinson, Steven Ward, Zino Ventura, Carlyn Burchell, and Gustav Gerderner.

A group of thugs led by Hazel (Vinson) hatch a plan to kidnap Katherine (Burchell), the daughter of a diamond magnate, and hold her for ransom. They get to the house, snatch the girl, take her back to the abandoned factory they're using as a base, and realize that they can't get hold of her parents. Cousins Ade (Ward) and James (Gerderner) go back to the house to find her parents, and find them...dead. Also a pair of priests.

Turns out that Katherine is possessed by a truly gnarly demon, and needs to eat four souls in order to walk the Earth for realsies. She worms her way into people's souls by showing them visions of people they're mourning, or more directly by exuding a tentacle with spikes from her mouth. Hazel eventually manages to set her on fire and run away as the cops approach, but everybody else is dead like doornails. (Spoilers, I guess.)

This movie has a great premise; it's very similar to Abigail, though it came out a few years prior. The idea of kidnapping someone who turns out to be possessed is real solid. The idea of a demon that gets into you by exploiting grief and trauma is likewise cool, though bringing dead loved ones back as phantoms is a little pedestrian. Where the movie gets muddled is in the lore it presents about the demon ("Trangul," but I have no idea about the spelling) - it needs four souls to manifest and it lives at the exact furthest point on the globe from a book literally written by God and it feeds on people in mourning and etc. There's a lot going on and the movie tries to treat a bunch of these facts as though they're big reveals, with the result that we get distracted from the good stuff.

And there is good stuff! There are some fun jump-scares, some good gore effects, and Katherine getting more and more possessed as the movie goes on is a good time. I think it would have benefited from just having a little more focus, and probably from cutting the whole videotaped exposition sequence where Katherine and then the priests document the whole possession and exorcism (including trying to burn Katherine alive). The movie doesn't trust the audience much, and the script comes off as really needing some editing and darling-killing. Also the dialog is...about on the level of 17-year-olds trying to play Hunter: The Reckoning, I think.

But Sharni Vinson (whom I knew from You're Next) and Carlyn Burchell are fun to watch, the set design is awesome, and it's not a terribly long movie, so it's a good time overall.

My Grade: C+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Hush