chicagopoetry Review of The House of the Devil

The House of the Devil (2009)

What Quentin Tarantino Should Be Doing

[7/10 · 6 December 2009]

Not only is this a perfectly shot period piece (the 1980s) with rotary dial telephones and a cassette player jamming The Fixx and all, but it is filmed and directed exactly like a 1980s horror movie, and done so not as a tongue and cheek parody like most of the flops Tarantino has made, but instead it is done quite seriously, tiny Roman numerals in the title scene and all. The plot is quite simple, with an hour of character development leading up to a half hour of suspense and gore, and the references to early horror classics such as Rosmary's Baby and When A Stranger Calls are subtle enough to produce an eerie sense of deja vu. When I see gems such as this I think, this is the type of thing Quentin Tarantino SHOULD be doing like six times a year but isn't. This is a must see for any fan of cult classics and 70s and 80s low budget cinema.