Beneath the fake blood and cheap masks of countless haunted house
attractions across the country, there are whispers of truly terrifying
alternatives. Looking to find an authentic, blood-curdling good fright
for Halloween, five friends set off on a road trip in an RV to track
down these underground Haunts. Just when their search seems to reach a
dead end, strange and disturbing things start happening and it becomes
clear that the Haunt has come to them...
The Houses October Built is a 2014 American found footage horror film and the directorial debut of Bobby Roe, who also starred in the movie. It was produced by Zack Andrews (who also starred) and Steven Schneider.
Looking for the ultimate Halloween experience, Bobby gathers four
equally adventurous friends and sets out to create a documentary about
their state-spanning terror tour. Starting out with some generic haunted
houses and mazes, the group starts to hunger for an attraction with a
little more bite. After hearing about locations that don’t exactly play
by the rules, one of the guys starts to question a few of the locals
about some off-the-radar attractions, finding out that a Louisiana joint
might be just the thrill they’re searching for. Setting a course for
the mysterious Halloween treat, the group starts to realize the
experience might be a little more than they bargained for. Everyone
loves a good haunt, but what happens when the workers don’t have an off
switch?
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| Creepy Shit??? Yes |
Despite overall mixed reviews and this being another in the endless parade of found footage films, this film kicks ass in my opinion. And my opinion is the only one that really matters. What separates this from others is that it presents an original idea. I love rolling through haunted houses and enjoyed seeing all the different real places throughout Texas.
The acting was good enough for what this was. The
group dynamic is so realistic. The movie we are watching is fiction, but there's a lot of fact mixed in
- documentary footage of alleged wrongdoing at Halloween attractions,
and interviews about their appeal, are scattered throughout the film as
transitional devices, and many of the haunted attractions our lead
characters find on their road trip are indeed real, live presentations. There is some nudity in this. The group goes to a
strip club, and there are topless dancers with some of the worst tit jobs I've ever seen.
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| Doll Girl was pretty fucking awesome. |
The best scares were in the house where they originally saw the weird
girl, and the panicked camera work actually worked then. But the
things-that-go-bump-in-the-night part with the camper van morphed into
an abduction, and the final sequence was poorly done. That's my only real complaint with the film....the ending. It felt rushed and could have been fleshed out a bit more.
The thing that really made me like this movie is the creepy scenes,
where some creepy guy or girl is just standing somewhere in the dark,
looking at you. That fucking doll girl was a show. Give her a franchise.
All the archetypes of "scare-actors" seen here are the sorts who'd
actually be broke or downtrodden in real life: clowns, carnies,
hillbillies, deformed children, old people with dementia - it's hard not
to notice, especially when, in the movie's most genuinely unsettling
moment, a local performer who's been semi-friendly thus far asks our
leads what they mean when they say "backwoods."
This is a great film for viewing around Halloween and will certainly be watched by myself every year. I'd like The Houses October Built to have tied things together a bit more in the end, but I can't deny it was addicting to watch. Ultimately, though, the movie doesn't quite nail what could have been a slam dunk.
