Christina's House

"Christina's House" is an interesting, low budget thriller / mystery film with a good cast. Don't watch it expecting too much though, and you'll probably only want / need to watch it once, but nevertheless, it's a fun, although at times slow, watch. Allison Lange makes her film debut here, and is rather good as Christina Tarling. Yes, the film is about her house and the strange going-ons that take place soon after she and her brother (Lorne Stewart) and father James (the excellent John Savage) move in.

Christina deals with typical teenage issues, such as pressure from her boyfriend Eddy (the charming Brendan Fehr), her trouble making brother, problems between her father and boyfriend and so on. The Sheriff begins to investigate the disappearances of several teens who were all last seen at Christina's house, and in typical small-town Sheriff convention, he is not the nicest of men. Jerry Hasseman does a good job playing him. Crystal Buble is okay as Christina's friend Karen, and Brad Rowe is suitably creepy as the mysterious Howie.

The ending to the film is somewhat of a let down, and at certain points the film leaves you wanting more, or a better explanation, but overall, a good effort from all involved, and the cast are great to watch.

The teenager Christina (Allison Lange), her younger brother Bobby (Lorne Stewart), and their father James Tarling (John Savage) moves to a rented house in Avedon, a small town in Washington, to be close to Christina's mother Joanne (Chilton Crane), who is interned in an asylum. The house is being repaired by Howie Rhodes (Brad Rowe) and Christina has a boy friend, the bad boy Eddy Duncan (Brendan Fehr). While in the house, Christina hears noises and has a permanent feeling that another person lives there, but her father believes it is the structure being settled. When two teenagers vanishes, the weird Sheriff Mark Sklar (Jerry Wasserman) visits the Tarling family, since the last place the teenagers were seen alive was nearby their home. When a dead body is found in a river close to the house, the Sheriff investigates the place, trying to find the guilty for the crime.

"Christina's House" is low paced, low budget but it is not a bad horror movie. The screenplay plays with very few characters, maybe due to the limitation of the budget, the viewer knows that one of them is the serial killer, but there is no clue along the story indicating who the criminal is. Although quite exaggerated when the mystery is disclosed, I found the twist acceptable and I liked the open end. The character of the Sheriff is too much weird, but maybe it was intentional to include him as a possible suspect. With regard to the highlighted goof, the killer sucked the blood on the hammer, therefore the blood has not disappeared from the hammer as mentioned in IMDb. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "A Casa da Morte" ("The House of the Death")

This isn't a great horror movie, but it does have something to offer, for those not expecting a classic.

It's not too violent to begin with. As a matter of fact, the first violent scene looks more like an explanation of how masters such as the Three Stooges made their brand of slapstick work without anyone actually getting hurt. It's just that it's not very convincing. I thought maybe the scene was supposed to be funny and that maybe the entire movie would be that way. But there's not that much comedy here, although there are a few laughs.

Violence does happen from time to time but it's not too bad. Toward the end, the movie does get quite bloody, including dead bodies. I found some of the final scenes quite disturbing and wondered how I would get over what I just saw.

Allison Lange is quite pretty with long blonde hair and wears a lot of revealing outfits. That's the primary appeal of the movie for me. She shows talent from time to time but isn't quite consistent. When it really counts, she comes through, and she shows a lot of courage and determination when things get really bad, after playing the screaming damsel in distress for a while.

Those who like mechanical stuff such as Rube Goldberg contraptions likely will be impressed at some of what happens toward the end. Actually, I've seen better in other movies, but it's interesting.

This doesn't really mean anything, but three of the movie's characters look familiar to me. I thought Eddy was Adam Samberg. The sheriff, when wearing sunglasses, reminded me of Richard Belzer's Detective Munch. And Christina's mom's nurse looked like Kara on "Supergirl", with the glasses.

Not a classic, but it fits the formula.

I thought this film was pretty decent as horror flicks go. First of all, the female lead (Allison Lange) is stunning. There was a twist at the end which although not exactly credible, was I felt actually quite disturbing. The action sequences were all pretty well done, and although I must admit that certain things in the film appeared to be, logistically or in terms of realism, absolutely ridicolous - if you are able to suspend belief and just enjoy it for what it is, I think it is basically an ok teen horror film with a very good looking cast.

Christina Tarling (Allison Lange) keeps hearing odd sounds from the attic above her room. Her terminally-grumpy dad (John Savage) tells her that the house is just "settling". This, while someone is murdering young women in the neighborhood and dumping the bodies on Christina's property.

The question is: Who could the killer be?

Could it be the hormonally-charged boyfriend (Brendan Fehr)? The ultra-friendly handyman (Brad Rowe)? The pushy, downright creepy sheriff (Jerry Wasserman)? Dad?

CHRISTINA'S HOUSE is a decent enough mystery-horror film. Though not overly exciting, unless you count Christina's lovely bubble bath, it does have a few chills and a wham-bang, violent finale with a nice twist...

CHRISTINA'S HOUSE.