Delayed Reaction: Housebound

The Pitch: A New Zealand haunted house comedy.

I don't like to get too caught up with the review aggregator sites. There's some major holes in the methodology. They reward movies more for being pleasant than interesting, for example. I get irritated whenever a film comes out and a Rottentomatoes score is referenced as if it has any meaning beyond pass/fail (and even then it's questionable). Because, that's what it's a rating of: passing or failing grades, not quality. That said, how the hell does this movie have a 97% rating? It's a fine movie. I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't anything special. I must be missing something.

The ultimate compliment for a horror-comedy is that it offers legitimate scares while still being funny. Few movies succeed at it. Scream did it. The Cabin in the Woods is pretty good about it. Housebound doesn't. It's more like Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It successfully mimics horror tropes, but never stops feeling like a comedy. So, let's just quit pretending it "succeeds as a horror movie". And that's not a bad thing. I love Tucker and Dale. That just means it has to wholly work as a comedy. This has a dry sense of humor, similar to Edward Wright's films. I don't prefer it. That's just a matter of personal taste. To recap: it didn't scare me or make me laugh. That's not great for a horror-comedy.

I'm being pretty negative. Sorry about that. I'm distracted by the noise around it rather than focusing on the movie. Housebound is a confident debut feature for writer/director Gerald Johnstone. The cast fits the characters well. The story finds a way to sidestep expectations just enough to keep things interesting and it doesn't feel at all constrained by its budget. I never got pulled in by the story or humor though.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend