Category Archives: 2009

2000s, 2009, A+, Black & White, Crime, Drama, Grade, History, Review, review-movie, Year

Film Review: Polytechnique – 2009

February 5, 2023 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Denis Villeneuve
Principal Cast	Karine Vanasse as Valérie Sébastien Huberdeau as Jean-François Maxim Gaudette as The Killer
Release Date	2009
Language(s)	English
Running Time	77 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

Note: This review contains spoilers regarding the first 30 minutes of the film as opposed to the site’s usual benchmark of 10-20 minutes. The same effort towards sustaining the intrigue and momentum of the film is maintained in this review, and all plot details revealed are just meant to be a springboard to discuss the scope of the work in better detail. Nothing discussed should undermine the “best” portions of the film or the many mysteries that keep the story engaging.

Women photocopy documents while students chatter around them.

Two women operate a photocopier as a sea of students bustle and jovially engage around them. Within a minute, this peace is interrupted by a set of gunshots. One of the women falls down in pain while the other clutches her ear; violence has created a division and the two women are now framed separately.

The camera tilts from the woman holding her ear to the one wounded on the floor before cutting again to the former. The cut reinforces the disruption that’s occurred – the space has become split. Accordingly, the sound also complete cuts out to a deafening silence as the subject of the shot, both literal and filmic, stumbles to find a grounding. The title card drops in, and a message appears indicating that the story to follow is based off survivor testimony from the Polytechnique shooting of 1989 but chronicles a series of fictional characters.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) places the gun to his head

We cut back chronologically and open on the shooter pointing the barrel of his gun to his head; he’s in the throes of suicidal ideation but chooses to not go forward with his decision yet. Instead, he lingers in his dirty, unkept apartment, unable to maintain his gaze on anything in particular. He opens a fridge as if looking for food but his eyes are focused on nothing in particular – there’s something missing.

But his roommate pays no heed to this odd behavior and the two exchange an informal “goodbye” with one another before the camera slowly pushes in on the killer’s face in a close-up shot, reinforcing the isolation of its subject. Even while eating his breakfast, the killer simply goes through the motions and looks somewhere off to the distance.

But when he sees his neighbor’s apartment lights up from his window, he suddenly becomes very focused. He turns off the light in the dining room and stares across; a close-up highlights his focused, intent gaze. The score changes as a result and an ominous droning and somber piano begin to play.

His neighbor begins to move and the killer runs to another room in his place and continues to stare; his neighbor, a young woman, is his obsessive focus. She turns off the lights to her place and departs the location. The killer turns away from his window dejectedly and then begins to act.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) cleans his room.

He starts to clean his dirty flat before writing a letter and delivering its contents to us via a voice-over monologue; this is his “declaration” and explanation for the shooting he is to commit, a shooting we have already borne witness to. From its outset, director Denis Villenevue explicitly challenges this justification by placing it after the shooting itself; the shock of the violence makes the killer’s abhorrent reasoning untenable from its inception.

Yet, the deconstruction of the motivation doesn’t stop there. The killer exalts himself as a person of reason who believes in science and explains that this position has led him to want to eliminate all “feminists”, a position he attributes to women by virtue of existence. He claims that they usurp all benefits of men without having to do any of the same labor and that he’s tired of it; yet, he also admits that he, a natural genius who gets great marks without trying, does not wish to do any meaningful study, labor, and be subject to a government. The points are non-sequitur and do not make sense when given more than a moment’s thought; instead, the rant reveals that he’s unable to comprehend himself outside of his hatred.

His alienation must be caused by some other agent(s): women. As the voice-over continues, he stares at a mirror and sees himself alone in the reflection; but if he refuses to understand himself, then his reflection offers no solace. This distance from identity is reinforced when he goes to burn any photographs of himself underneath the mirror in the sink. His sense of self exists only in opposition to the women he has decried as enemy and has nothing to furnish itself on.

The film cuts to another apartment and the non-diegetic track finally stops playing. A young woman, Stéphanie (Evelyne Brochu), holds a cigarette outside the window. She brings it back in and takes a puff before calling out to her roomate, Valérie (Karine Vanasse), to ask a science question related to entropy. Valérie explains the answer and then gets for an interview.

She tries on a series of dresses while looking in the mirror and isn’t satisfied with how she looks. Thankfully, Stéphanie notices her struggling and helps out with getting a better outfit as a diegetic song plays; the two friends smile with each other as they look into the mirror while the music continues and livens up the moment.

Thus, the difference between the men and women’s apartments are formally rendered by Villenevue. One has closed windows while the other apartment’s is open. One has persons who are closed off to one another while the other has persons who eagerly assist and communicate with one another. One is silent and filled with a music that its subjects cannot hear while the other is filled with the sounds of a cheerful song that its subjects can enjoy. While the men are alienated and separate, the women are together and engage in community. This is why Valérie, as opposed to the killer, can find her identity vis-a-vis the mirror; she has a friend to help her out.

While the two young women make their way to university, the film cuts back to the killer who looks at people while driving; his car’s windows and side-view mirrors frame persons in unnatural manners and showcase the killer’s warped perspective. The non-diegetic track comes back into play as he writes and delivers an apology letter to his mother, a woman who he feels a need to explain things to – a sharp contradiction given his complete admonishment of all womenkind.

As the music continues to play, the film cuts to a slanted view of a library, before slowly arcing as it tracks to a new subject, Jean-François (Sébastien Huberdeau). When the young man enters the frame in the up-right position, the non-diegetic track disappears. A passerby calls out to Jean-Francois (JF) and greets him before departing – JF, unlike the killer, is not isolated and has connections.

Valérie (Karine Vanasse) goes to her interview.

Meanwhile, Valérie proceeds to her interview and tries to make a case for herself. But the interviewer immediately disrupts her when he questions her choice to pursue mechanical over civil engineering; the latter, he suggests, is more popular for women because it’s easier and allows them to raise a family. The misogynistic implication of his words is clear: Valérie obviously cannot handle the rigors of the harder discipline if she has “motherly” aspirations. The camera closes in on her face as she struggles to answer the question; the sexism has isolated her in the conversation. Far from finding it easier to get a job as per the killer’s proclamations, she’s immediately forced to jump through additional hoops that her male counterparts would never have to deal with.

She goes to the bathroom to deal with her frustrations and finds herself surrounded by a series of reflections, a sea of Valéries caught up in the fracture opened by the interviewer’s intrusion. But the camera pans through these series of reflections until it comes onto a frame of close-up of a singular reflection of Valérie; she’s found herself once again and proceeds forward. Unlike the killer who refuses to look inwards and seeks external scapegoats for his issues, she looks inwards and finds something to affirm.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) can make no connections even in a sea of people.

We cut to a cafeteria where a host of students converse among themselves and engage in everyday behavior. The killer makes his way through the crowd as if looking for something but ends up even more isolated amongst the crowd. He’s unable to find any connection and goes to his car as a non-diegetic score briefly comes into play again.

But it quickly dissipates as Stéphanie comes into the frame; she’s looking for Valérie to get the details on the interview and comforts her friend over the less-than-pleasant encounter. Valérie reveals that she got the job because she played the part expected by the interviewer and claimed she wasn’t interested in having kids; she was forced to repress her desire to get a “fair” chance”

The conversation dissipates and up-beat diegetic music starts to play as the camera goes through the students gathered in the cafeteria to find JF sitting in frustration; he’s incapable of figuring out a problem and spots Valérie and Stéphanie amongst everyone. He immediately goes to greet them and asks for help solving the problem. Valérie lends him his notes and he goes to copy them. Once again, Valérie comes to the aid of a friend, male instead of female this time around. The killer’s speech is once again emphatically disproved as the most knowledgeable person, the one willing to help both women and men, is a woman.

JF (Sébastien Huberdeau) talks to a woman next to the printer.

Furthermore, in sharp contrast to the killer, JF is more than amenable to women and accepts their help and friendship just as willingly as he would any man. While scanning, he exchanges kind words with another woman looking to use the photocopier and quickly takes his notes. But his gaze gets caught up in a painting.

The non-diegetic score creeps back in while the camera slowly pushes in on a copy of Picasso’s “Guernica”; the piece of art uses “lack of color to express the starkness of the aftermath of the bombing”. It serves as an “anti-war symbol” and an “embodiment of peace”. It offers multiple interpretations of its elements. ^[1] Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso. 10 Facts About Guernica by Pablo Picasso. (n.d.). Retrieved February 5, 2023, from https://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp

The intensified focus on the painting thus serves a dual purpose: it foreshadows of the violence to come, a violence we’ve already been privy to due to the non-linear telling of the narrative, and aligns the films motivations and some of its structural choices with the paintings. We’ve seen the black-and-white aesthetic on display and the violence proper and, thus, we brace ourselves for the “aftermath” and the “peace” to follow.

This image of violence cuts to the killer’s hands clenched in prayer and his deep breaths merge with the score. He’s getting ready to (re)enact the shooting and looks to steady himself. He scribbles more into his letter, as if anything he has left to say can explain what he’s going to do. Then he hears a group of students talking outside and a women’s voice breaks through his trance. He is ready.

The Killer (Maxim Gaudette) enters the school as a haze.

He walks back into the school and the camera captures him in a blurry haze reflecting his ill-defined subjectivity. A close-up on his face captures his absolute inability to come to terms with himself in the world. He looks around the space but only sees men around him; his choice of victim does not seem available. But then, like JF, he catches sight of Valérie and Stéphanie heading to class; his choice is set and his victims, women, have been found.

The film continues to swap between these three primary perspectives – the killer, JF, Valérie – before, during, and after the events of the shooting in an attempt to demonstrate the fracturing effect of violence and the way it (re)forms bonds between both individuals and their surroundings. By showing us the violence at the beginning, the film primes us to focus not on the violence itself but on the manner by which it moves through a system and changes it.

In this way, the violence comes to be a formal marker that disrupts the film as much as it disrupts the characters’ lives. The scene of the shooting repeatedly intervenes, demonstrating its violent, traumatic effects on the psyche. The characters who survive are unable to ever fully forget this disruption as it keeps rearing its ugly head. This effect is felt by the viewer as well who is unable to ever enjoy the time with the characters knowing what’s to come; even a peaceful moment after the shooting becomes interrupted as the film threatens to cut to darker times and force us to relive the trauma again.

This editing approach transforms the shooting from a singular event to a site of traumatic commingling as the perspectives of the characters with their respective chronologies bleed into one another in oneiric fashion. A scene goes from being a flashback to being a dream based on whose subjectivity is being recognized; violence fractures individuals and splinters their experience before reforming them in a new image. The interpretatively ambiguous “Guernica” becomes a fitting double to the film as violence shatters the otherwise normal and forces us to question.

This is why the killer is introduced after the effects of his shooting, leaving him as only a symbolic placeholder as an agent of violence; even the credits list him as merely “The Killer.” Both JF and Valérie are introduced after a scene of the killer going through his plans for the day; the former parties are unaware of his presence but his actions will come to severely impact their lives and after they are made to experience the violence, just as the viewer does at the film’s start, time goes out of joint. The film circles this point of senseless brutality and forces us to engage.

But Villeneuve isn’t as interested in the violence by itself as he is in examining its relation to the sexes and the way those demarcations manifest in identity. This is why he jumps between two men – the killer and JF – and a woman – Valérie. The killer can only see women as the cause of his alienation while JF sees them as companions no different from himself. The film repeatedly highlights how the former’s alienation leaves him fully closed off from men and women despite his stated intentions while the latter’s openness leaves him able to freely interact with everyone. Windows being opened versus closed, diegetic versus non-diegetic music, and camera flips help to signify the difference in these spaces, while mirrors help to make sense of how subjects find themselves in relation these spaces. These attributes help visualize violence’s effects as the changes in spaces render women as fungible objects that can be sacrificed and make distinguishing between “good” and “bad” men much more difficult. The set-up allows Villenevue to suggest that the solution to this heinousness lies in communication, he ultimately leaves the final answer up to interpretation.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Polytechnique formally breakdowns a school-shooting from a series of gendered perspectives, including that of the male killer’s, in a non-chronological format in order to examine the way violence fractures subjectivity. Its editing takes advantage of being able to shift between these multi-faceted approaches and is able to oscillate in oneiric fashion that captivates as much as it perplexes.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2000s, 2009, A+, Art House, Drama, Grade, Horror, Past, psychological, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Year

Film Review: Antichrist – 2009

October 31, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Lars von Trier
Principal Cast	Willem Dafoe as Him Charlotte Gainsbourg as Her
Release Date	2009
Language(s)	English
Running Time	108 minutes

Beautiful black and white compositions envelop the screen. An operatic musical theme, Lascia ch’io pianga, plays in the background. A couple played by Dafoe and Gainsburg make passionate love, genitals on full display. A moment of vitality. A moment of life. Unknown to them, their child leaves his crib. He wanders off towards to a work desk upon which three figures sit. These are the three beggars that will make up and divide the progression of the movie into its chapters: grief, pain, and suffering. The movie cross cuts between the images of the parents in the throes of sexual passion – their faces matched to similar expressions by their son as he climbs up onto the windowsill above the desk and makes the plunge below.

Child with his head back as he falls from window.

A moment of death during a moment of happiness. Good and bad juxtaposed against one another. Are they independent of one another or does the presence of one necessitate the other? This attempt to find meaning in the face of such pain serves as the thematic thrust that moves the story along as the couple attempts to deal with their newfound loss.

The nameless couple grieves for the loss of their son as the movie turns from black and white to a muted color palette that reflects the loss of light in their life. The formalistic compositions give way to a handheld camera that reflects this newfound chaotic injection. The male, an agent of rationality, sees the events as separate and attempts to systematize the chaotic turbulence he and his wife are experiencing. The death of their son is a tragedy , but is not the end of the world. The female, an agent of emotion, sees the events as inextricably tied to each other and struggles to understand how such evil can happen in a world. How can a child be lost so easily? While He gets over the death fairly quickly his wife slips into a state of depressive anxiety. She experiences twitching eyes, dryness in her throats, a reining in the ears, sweating on her neck, and shaking in her fingers. As the physical manifestations of her suffering wreak havoc on her body her husband reminds her that she’s not going through anything metaphysical. It’s all just a physical response to an event. It’s rooted in the naturalistic world of science and as such should be codified through the symbolic registers of psychology. His attempts at help can be read as heartfelt attempts at helping his partner. They can also be read as an misogynistic attempt at controlling her behavior as he dictates what she “really thinks” and really feels, ignoring her feelings in favor of his own interpretations.

She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) experiences an anxiety attack and is put off by the strong physicals response to her suffering. Her husband quickly codes the images of her suffering as just symptoms of anxiety, casting aside the pain as a natural medical phenomenon in an attempt to explain it.

The movie even reflects this feeling early on when he convinces her to stop receiving care from a hospital in lieu of engaging in therapy with him. He is after all a psychologist who’s better than any doctors. How could he not know his own wife better than trained professionals? The film breaks the 180 rule (maintain the spatial placement of actors and the direction they’re facing) by having him occupy the space his wife is in, demonstrating that he’s taking charge of the situation. It reflects the way her agency is placed to the wayside as she’s made to reflect the desire and whims of her partner. This battle for agency, for determining who’s view of the world is correct, becomes the backdrop the movie plays on.

This breaking of the 180 degree rule demonstrates the power struggle at play. He (Willem Dafoe) literally takes her (Charlotte Gainsbourg) subject position as he explains to her why the doctors she’s currently seeing in the hospital aren’t good at enough at taking care of her. He subsumes her agency and makes the decision for Her in relation to what her future care will look like.

In an attempt to get her back to normal, he decides to take the two of them to their cabin located in woods, aptly titled Eden. In the Bible, Adam and Eve, a he and she, are cast aside from the forest for eating the fruit of knowledge and to prevent them from eating the fruit of life. In this tale, he and she, go to the forest to confront an irrationality concerning an cruel death. A paradise for the progenitors who are supposed to be ignorant becomes the destination for healing a similar couple through the power of knowledge. With a title like Antichrist, it’s hard not to come into the movie thinking it will be about faith and religion, but that thought quickly gives way as it becomes clear that the movie is Von Trier’s response to the problem of Evil.

How can evil exist in a world where God is the creator? How could a good and righteous entity focused on the preservation of peaceful bliss allow chaos to reign. This is alternative theology, enacted by two nameless characters who serve as a stand in for men and women in general, that plays like an inversion and deconstruction of the tale of Genesis. The three beggars parallel the three wise men. He is a stand- in for Adam. She is a stand-in for Eve. Eden is a place of fear as opposed to a paradise. The religious background and connections are never made explicit but merely serve as the thematic heft that makes the story progress from beat to beat. The psychological violence He hurls at Her at the beginning in his attempts to psychoanalyze her are met with her similar physical attempts at violence in the latter half of this movie. Speaking of which, if the dying baby at the start didn’t give it away, the movie goes to some fairly dark and depressing places and that’s reflected in some intense and brutal scenes of violence. However, given the progression and beats the story delves into this violence is necessary and though its depiction is graphic, it never comes off feeling gratuitous or without a purpose.

The main conflict between the He and She reminds me of the main couples’ dilemma from Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (rationalism vs affective connection in the face of a child’s death) combined with the couple from Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (metaphysical tug of war for control in the relationship). Like both of those movies, the performances from the main actors are astounding with both of them clearly giving 110%. Dafoe is unrelenting in his attempts at maintain control of the situation but plays it off in a way that feels understandable . There are misogynic tones if you read into the way he acts, but at a surface level glance his actions feel relatable to an extent. The balancing act to simultaneously be an asshole but not deplorable is a tough one one to find, but he somehow manages to deliver it. Gainsbourg absolutely channels a shrieking devastation going from riddled with anxiety and being panicked to becoming strangely unnerving and unhinged as the movie progresses to its natural conclusion. Her emotional intensity provides a sharp contrast with Dafoe’s and helps clearly delineate the couple’s thoughts and subsequent actions. Some of the actions she takes in the latter portion of the movie might feel overblown but feel authentic due to her precision and execution. Together they infuse the movie with the emotional energy it needs to hit the devastating punches it delivers to the audience.

Likewise the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and musical choices by Kristian Eidnes Andersen give the movie a texture that lets it ooze out a palpable discomfort. Mantle deftly switches from handheld during the realistic and grounded scenes to a steady and formalistic style during the surreal and dreamlike sequences. Going from the character’s talking to one another to their respective headspaces creates a poignant whiplash that keeps audiences on their toes while providing a visual splendor that feels revolting giving what’s going on. This movie makes the death of a child look beautiful and if that’s not saying something I don’t know what is. Andersen provides less of a score and more of an impressionistic musical accompaniment to the visuals. Outside of the operatic theme that plays during the beginning and ending of the movie, there’s less of a discernible score and more of a rhythmic feeling that amplifies the disturbing visuals on display. Never does this use of music overwhelm the scene. Instead, it operates in the background like wallpaper for the ears, giving the movie an auditory texture that keeps it flowing.

Antichrist isn’t a movie for everybody. It’s dark and goes to emotional places that won’t leave you in the most pleasant place after the viewing experience. The psychological beatings from the first half will make those who have been victims of gaslighting feel a certain kind of way. The physical violence from the second half will certainly induce a squeamish anxiety that will refuse to settle. However, those who are willing to endure the provocations will find a moving and thought provoking look into humanity, it’s place in the world, and the species attempts at finding meaning in a chaotic and unforgiving world.

Report Card

TLDR	Antichrist is my favorite horror movie of the 2000’s decade (2000- 2009) for good reason. The dark and unsettling tale plays like a response to the classical philosophical problem o f evil – how can God be reconciled in a world where evil and chaos seem to strike at every opportunity? How can evil can strike at the most peaceful of times ? The death of a child cut against the lovemaking session of the child’s parents set the question in motion and watching the grieving couple navigate the labyrinth of meaning to find an answer is something that has to be experienced. The performances by the unnamed leads are emotionally resonant and each actor brings their A game to this alternative theology. If you can stomach some graphic violence and enjoy movies with arthouse proclivities, strap in for this one of a kind ride.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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2000s, 2009, A, Black-Comedy, Comedy, Grade, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Year

Review: Jennifer’s Body

March 3, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Karyn Kusama
Principal Cast	Megan Fox as Jennifer Amanda Seyfried as Needy Johny Simmons as Chip
Release Date	2009
Language(s)	English
Running Time	102 minutes

When this movie first came out over a decade ago, I thought it was going to be some schlocky exploitative film based on the advertising. Watching the movie proved to be a completely different experience and I remember feeling pretty satisfied with what I saw. As you can imagine I was shocked when I saw the low Rotten Tomatoes score. Thankfully, after a recent re-watch, I’m proud to say my love for the movie has only appreciated over the years and I’m confident that if it came out today, it’d probably end up doing great. At least I hope it would. If anything this is more proof that the Tomato Meter only matters if you let it matter.

Needy, a reticent nerd, realizes that her super popular BFF, Jennifer, has transformed into a man-eating succubus, and desperately tries to stop her carnivorous ways. The movie picks up on Needy in a mental institution, explaining the events of Jennifer’s possession and her subsequent rampage. This framing mechanism gives the story a sense of mystery and allows for some fun “breaking the 4th wall” moments. Needy is so bad ass and resolute in this “current” timeline and so reserved and shy in the story she narrates. You want to why and she tells you in an incredibly entertaining way. The way the framing mechanism bookends certain moments makes it clear the story is focused on Needy’s journey, not her destination. Once the movie “ends” you appreciate the way the whole story was structured a lot more.

Despite being a horror movie and containing some genuinely chilling moments to experience and think about, the movie stands in out in just how funny it is. Yes, there’s a few moments where the humor and horror clash, but I think for the most part the two elements accentuate one another. The movie has a good blend of parodies of cliched young adult humor and some genuinely dark humor with a distinct feminist blend. I found myself laughing at the more obvious jokes while appreciating the more subtle-not-so-subtle social commentary.

The idea of stopping a succubus isn’t new, but the movie mainly utilizes its supernatural aspect to navigate a litany of (especially at the time of the movie’s release) unexplored ideas as opposed to just playing it cool as a creature feature. Somehow the story explores toxicity in relationships, the way women are stripped of agency and forced to play disparate social roles, and the way tragedy is exploited. The small town setting is taken full advantage of to make these ideas even more pronounced.

Fox kills it as the lead. She feels like a caricature of what people actually thought/think about her and nails the air-headed, egotistical, narcissistic pretty girl archetype. After her transformation into bloodthirsty succubus, she manages to ramp her annoying qualities up a notch which lends to some genuinely funny moments. Seyfried is great as the nerdy shy friend who’s slowly forced into becoming more proactive as things get more and more out of control. The energy they give off is infectious and jumps off the screen.

At a surface level, the two have almost nothing in common with the former acting in service of the latter since their childhood. It’s a relatable relationship dynamic that I haven’t seen explored a lot, let alone in such depth and nuance. They may be “BFFs”, but as the film progresses the parameters of what that relationship really means and entails become clear, faults and all. The romantic tension between them is also teased and stretched in ways that not only feels well justified thematically but feels natural and for the most part non-exploitative. Their respective interactions juxtaposed with the almost nonchalant indifference Jennifer treats her victims with gives you a lot to think about and does a good job humanizing our monster in disguise. Yes, there’s a few sexually charged scenes, but the movie’s focus is on the relationship underneath the physical exchange, not the exchange itself.

While I love how Needy and Jennifer’s relationship is explored, certain supernatural elements of it feel unjustified/contrived. These moments feel like they exist just to create certain confrontations to push the story forward as opposed to naturally occurring plot events. Additionally, some side characters feel a bit too comical and one-note, so they stand out in contrast to the more well realized main characters. These problems never de

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Jennifer’s Body tells the story of a girl desperate to stop her former best friend turned succubus from terrorizing the men of their small town. Somehow this highly slept on blend of horror, comedy, and dark humor manages to be even more socially relevant today than back in 2009 when it was released. Don’t let the trailers fool you. There’s more than meets the eye in this unapologetically fun movie.
Rating	9.1/10
Grade	A

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2000s, 2009, A+, Grade, Past, Review, review-movie, slasher, supernatural, Year

Film Review: The House of the Devil

October 8, 2019 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Ti West
Principal Cast	Jocelin Donahue as Samantha Hughes Greta Gerwig as Megan Tom Noonan as Mr.Ulman Mary Woronov as Mrs.Ulman
Release Date	2009
Language(s)	English
Running Time	95 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

The film opens with text claiming that it’s based on a true story regarding the Satanic Panic of the 80’s. The text fades to black which then fades into to a view of a room. A young woman, Samantha (Joceline Donahue), can be seen framed by a set of doorways and shadows; she’s tucked away within the space. The camera slowly zooms in to get a better perspective of her; she’s lost in thought and the long zoom only exemplifies the intensity of her deliberation.

Suddenly, an older woman (Dee Wallace) approaches Samantha from behind and asks the latter if she enjoys the apartment unit. Samantha snaps back to reality, turns around, and claims it’s perfect. The landlady is enthused by the response. She claims that she didn’t like another applicant who seemed like trouble and would rather Samantha, someone who reminds her of her own good-natured daughter, move into the location instead.

But while the residence appears to be perfect, it’s clear there’s an issue. Samantha gazes apprehensively at the listing’s price and the reason for her earlier indecision simultaneously becomes apparent: she doesn’t have the funds needed to afford the location. When she mentions her financial struggles, the landlady decides to waive some initial fees and put off the first payment; helping out a daughter surrogate matters more than making a higher profit. With some financial wiggle room, Samantha hops off to her dorm room.

While she traverses, the opening sequence proceeds in gusto with loud yellow credits, diegetic music introduced by Samantha’s Walkman, and a few freeze frame shots. If the opening’s “true story” homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror wasn’t enough, this sequence makes the 70’s/80’s horror milieu that the film is placing itself within clear and sets expectations of where the story is going to go, cueing the viewer to focus in on the smaller details on the journey as opposed to its destination.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue)sees a sock on her door.

But at the end of her trek, Samantha sees a sock hanging on her door, a telltale sign that her roommate (Heather Robb) has the room occupied for carnal purposes. Frustrated, she knocks on the door and reminds her roommate that it’s morning, implying that the latter’s “adventure” has been ongoing since the night and has prevented Samantha from being able to enter her own living area. What should have been her private reprieve from the world becomes an uninhabitable space occupied by antagonistic “others”.

Unwilling to walk in and deal with her roommate and her roommate’s partner in the nude, Samantha walks off and leaves the dormitory. She passes by a bulletin board plastered with flyers: in the center is an ad for a babysitter job and surrounding it are calls to join in watching an upcoming eclipse. The camera lingers on the board with the ad positioned center-frame even after Samantha passes by it highlighting the importance of what it conveys.

Then, Samantha walks back into frame and re-reads the babysitting ad. She checks around to make sure no one’s watching her and takes the first of the slips containing the number to call. She leaves the frame and the camera zooms in on the ad, emphasizing that the “S” in “Sitter” is written with a “$” symbol; Samantha’s desperate desire to find a new residence necessitates a quick stream of cash and that’s all she can focus on now.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) calls the number.

She gets to a payphone and calls the number only to hear the answering machine; she leaves her name and number and asks for a callback if the opportunity is still available. The camera stays in place as she walks off, framing both her and the phone against one another; the visual importance given to the inanimate object generates a slight unease.

But then the phone starts to ring. Samantha is as surprised as us and walks back to receive the seemingly impossible call. Accordingly, she asks the caller, who is revealed to be the babysitter client, how they got the payphone number and called it; the sequence of events implies that someone had to have been watching her put the call in to call back the phone quickly enough so that she would be able to hear it and pick it up. Yet, the client sidesteps the question and presses on with the opportunity, ascertaining if Samantha is still interested. She quickly pivots; money is more important than strange coincidences and she can’t afford to question a gig offering a nice payout.

The caller asks to meet at a building in the university and Samantha agrees. She walks away from the phone again and the composition from earlier is replicated. This time, she turns around and looks at the phone quizzingly. The strangeness of the call still lingers on her mind.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) hesitates before opening the door.

She treks back to her room and sees the sock removed from the door knob. She hesitates for a moment, accepts the possibility of walking on her roommate having sex, and then opens the door to go in. Yet, what she enters into isn’t that much better. Her roommate’s side of the room is absolutely filthy with clothes littering the floor. After traversing the cloth minefield, Samantha tries to pack her bag but is promptly hit on by her roommate’s partner. It’s no wonder why she wants to leave as soon as possible.

Yet, things only proceed to get more frustrating for Samantha as she waits for her caller to approach. Even though she puts her Walkman on, the music is barely audible; she can barely focus on it in preparation for what’s to come. A dissolve showcases time passing her by. When she realizes that in the time she’s waited an entire class has finished, she decides to abandon the endeavor. The disappointing scene dissolves into a sign for “Eclipse Pie” – another mention of the eclipse.

It’s at this restaurant where Samantha finally divulges the frustrations building up in her up to the point to her best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig). Her fears about not having the money to get to a place she can call home swell up and threaten to burst. The babysitter job was the perfect opportunity to get cash quickly and under the table.

Megan tries to lift Samantha’s spirits up. First, she assures Megan that the latter will be taken care of if she can’t find any money. Megan comes from a family of wealth and at the very least will help her friend with a place to stay. Second, she highlights that the job could have been awful: “the kid could be from hell.” This call-back to the opening text’s mention of “Satanic cults” adds to the unease surrounding the situation. Perhaps, it’s a good thing Samantha didn’t get the job.

When Megan offers to help Samantha get revenge by finding and tearing down all the potential babysitter ads put up by the no-show client to ensure that no one responds to their call, there’s a part of us that wants Samantha to agree and prevent the seeming inevitability. However, Samantha, the upstanding girl the landlady characterized her to be, refuses her friend’s offer to retaliate and goes back to her room to figure out what to do.

Unfortunately, while her roommate’s nighttime visitor is now gone, her roommate is still very much present and her constant snoring makes catching even a moment’s rest impossible. Samantha seldom places her head on a pillow before giving up and going to the bathroom. She flips all the faucets on. The noise generated by the streams covers the sounds of her crying. She’s isolated in the bathroom stall and the seemingly insurmountable pressure she feels is perfectly encapsulated by the image of the drain in the sink overflowing with water from a never-ending tap.

Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) writes down the Ulman address.

But back in the room, Samantha is greeted with unexpected news from her roommate who informs her that someone called and left a message regarding a babysitter job. Immediately, Samantha jumps on the opportunity, gets the number, and calls the client once more. She quickly forgives his excuse for not coming: he had a hectic morning and found himself unable to come. He mentions that he had another sitter lined up but they backed out and gave him trouble and thanks Samantha for calling back in spite of his treatment of her. Just like with the landlady, it appears that the upstanding Samantha is here to save the day and take the place of another deviant woman.

He asks her to come in for the night and babysit till a little after midnight in exchange for double the rate of pay. With no hesitation, Samantha agrees and calls up Megan for a ride. The film cuts to a shot of the moon, a reminder of the coming eclipse, as Samantha gets into Megan’s car. During their long drive up to the client’s household. Megan admits that she took down all the ads she could find; Samantha realizes that her opportunity was a result of this interference as the client had no one else to reach out to. Megan, for all intents and purposes, got Samantha her position for the night.

This revelation is accompanied by a lingering shot of a cemetery the girls drive by – a sign of things to come. The cemetery dissolves to a shot of the girls finally making it to the house. They get out and make their way to the front door and knock. A long zoom on the door handle raises the stakes on what’s to follow, creating an anticipation to discover the truth behind the job opportunity. The door opens and the girls look up as a pair of long arms extends out to greet them; the client’s face is withheld from the frame and the viewer amplifying the mystery and beckoning both the viewer and the girls to discover what lies in wait. But as the night goes on, Samantha finds herself embroiled in a dark mystery that threatens to completely destroy her life.

While the nature of the mystery, presaged by the film’s opening text and multiple subsequent clues, offers little in the way of genuine surprise, it gives director Ti West the perfect backdrop to explore the anxieties of the time and present an almost mythological depiction of the horrors associated with the respective culture shift. Like the films whose styles it pays homage to, The House of the Devil uses the literal struggle its protagonist undergoes to identify the stakes of the culture war of the era, revealing that the true horror of the “other” side stems not from their perverse desires but from the way those desires seem to mirror and pervert traditional desires.

Samantha’s journey seems to be a slow one, but its meticulous construction gives West ample time to set up her archetypal innocence and establish threats, unseen to her but visible to us, which bubble underneath the surface until the final few minutes of the film where the violence finally erupts. It’s when the struggle finally comes to its climax that the cinematography shifts from the slow and meticulous to the rapidly shifting and handheld, reflecting the transitional state resulting from the horrific conflict. When the dust finally settles, the camera regains its composure and documents the aftermath of the battle, tying the thematic and narrative strands up in a nice, neat, mortifying package

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TLDR	The House of the Devil perfectly encapsulates the best qualities of 70’s and 80’s horror films, capitalizing on cultural anxieties to elevate macabre sequences into terrifying nightmares. This is a Satanic Panic story that simmers in wait until just the right moment before bursting into a bloody hellscape that no fan of horror should miss.
Rating	10/10
Grade	A+

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