film

The Houses October Built (2014)

One of the better found-footage flicks I’ve seen in a while…until the end…but I’m starting to think that shitty, nonsensical endings are a prerequisite for found footage.

It’s been a while since I devoted a slice of Sidemeat to my experiences with the dregs of Netflix, but I thought that The Houses October Built was a semi-original take on the sub-genre of found footage and almost original.

The premise is a pretty good one. A group of friends set out on a road trip a few days before Halloween in hopes of finding the most ultimate, extreme scares in backwoods “haunted house” attractions. A lot of great questions are posited in the first act, such as defining an “extreme scare” and exploring some of the shady goings-on in this form of entertainment.  It’s actually quite interesting to begin with, especially as they cautiously attempt to scratch beneath the surface.

Unfortunately I don’t think the screenwriter really knew what to do with some of these ideas, because more often than not the viewer is left hanging.  I would’ve loved to have found out just what some of these “shady activities” taking place at these attractions were.  A little groping?  Some pickpocketing? Or are we talking digging up graves and chopping up animals for the most realistic props?  I guess we’ll never know.  Even more pressing is the idea behind what constitutes “extreme.”  Our lead character does a very good job of defining the feeling early on in the film, when he likens it to being a small child in one of these haunted houses and not truly knowing if what they’re seeing is real or pretend.  That’s the feeling our lead is after, and it certainly piqued my interest.

The film does manage to produce a few genuinely creepy moments.

As the film wears on though, the characters have a difficult time vocalizing what “extreme” is.  As the cynic of the group puts it (paraphrasing), “what’s the use in using real body parts if I don’t know they’re real body parts….I mean I might be looking at a real body part but I’m just gonna think it’s fake so what’s the point?”  As it becomes clear that the mostly likable group of protagonists isn’t really sure what they’re after, the film begins to stall.  Thankfully we’re treated to some pretty interesting haunted houses along the way, and while well-done and possibly run by people of a questionable mental state, there’s never any doubt that these are constructed purely for entertainment (and monetary) purposes.

Eventually our characters learn of “The Blue Skeleton,” a traveling “attraction” that offers up the ultimate scare.  Things really start moving when we see the story through the eyes of a member of The Blue Skeleton sneak into the group’s RV and film them as they sleep.  Our main man finally get some solid info from a couple of dudes at an unrelated haunted house and the group sets out.  However, weird things start happening well before they reach their destination, and as the audience, we get the pleasure of experience exactly what the characters are feeling – is this an act?  An elaborate prank?  Is this what’s meant to scare us “for real”?

This still doesn’t quite do the original scene justice, but the crazed, bloody, anthropomorphic rabbit-with-an-axe in the woods was a very well done “is it real is it an act” moment.

Despite some of the members’ anxiety, they reach their destination, after which the cameraman is assaulted (and possibly murdered) and the rest are promptly kidnapped.  From here the POV shifts exclusively to The Blue Skeleton.  If they were out to terrify the group of friends, the black hoods and dropping them off in the dark seem to be all that was needed.  Each of the group is dropped off at a different location, some with a camera, others being filmed from a camera at their location.  Here’s where shit should’ve gotten really intense.  Here’s where all the “is it real or is it an act” questions should’ve started kicking in, but instead we’re given an extremely brief look at some very confusing scenarios with several quick cuts between each member.  At this point everything sort of falls apart.

This was supposed to be the pay off, yet the entire third act is terribly rushed and the filmmaker fails to build any suspense at all, mostly because the viewer isn’t ever entirely clear about what’s happening and also because our time with the characters – who are truly terrified at this point – is far too limited.   And as the film hastily careens towards its unsatisfactory ending, I’m left wondering just what in the hell happened to such a thoughtful build-up?

The meeting with “Giggles” marks the groups first waking interaction with “The Blue Skeleton” and immediately the mood changes to reflect the blurring lines between real and pretend.

You may want to skip this paragraph if you’re concerned about spoilers….alright, everyone good now? Quite simply, the characters are buried alive, cut, the end.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I love being a turt– shit, that’s not it.  Oh yeah, found footage movies suck at providing even so much as a serviceable ending.  Not only does this ending qualify as “dumb,” it takes it a step further to totally anti-climatic!  The characters aren’t hacked to bits, they aren’t psychologically tortured with the alternating thought that this all might not be real….nope, they’re scared shitless for exactly 13.4 seconds and then buried alive.

Despite the somewhat mundane ending in and of itself, I’m left asking whether or not it was all part of the scare or were these folks actually murdered?  The film doesn’t give any clues one way or the other, but the final scene is something that could be undone should The Blue Skeleton choose.  Realistically the “attackers” do have a window of time in which to begin “reversing” what they started followed by a slap on the back and a cry of “Gotcha!”  Some viewers like to put on their pseudo-intellectual asshats and say shit like, “I like ambiguous endings, that way I get to decide what happened.”  No.  No fucker.  The point of a story is not to just rip out the last page and make up anything you want about cauliflower, unicorns, and the Zeta Reticulans!  An ambiguous ending is not the hallmark of a genius filmmaker, it’s a crutch for lazy (or inept) ones.

I don’t want to be too very harsh on The Houses October Built, because in some ways it is a notch or two above your standard found footage film.  For one, the cast is actually pretty decent and even somewhat likable.  Found footage movies are notorious for their lack of character development or worse still bringing out the absolute worst in its characters.  Many times the only shred of development we’re given in some petty bullshit about how someone cheated on someone, resulting in a bunch of losers who spend a films trying to care about.  Most found footage films also lack large amounts of written dialog in their scripts and encourage the actors to improvise in order to add to the naturalistic vibe.  In the majority of these films the characters engage in painfully banal conversation, and when the shit hits the fan, it’s all, “fuck…fuck…FUCK!  Oh my god, what the fuck was that?  What the fuck was that?  Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, MATT!  MATT!  Where the fuck are you Matt??!!  Fuck!  MATT!  I shouldn’t even fucking be here right now…shit…fuck…oh fuck!”  …And I think I’m probably being generous.  The cast of unknowns in The Houses October Built won’t be making travel arrangements to the Oscars anytime soon, but they’re more than capable of giving us watchable dialog that doesn’t degenerate into total verbal diarrhea every time the shit hits the fan.

Is it live…or is it Memorex?

Among its other strengths are the blessedly modest amounts of “shaky-cam time,” a virtual absence of pointless recording artifacts, and a plausible internal logic as to why the camera keeps rolling even after things get really bad.  The film’s value comes tucked away in small pieces (small pieces that we often rightfully take for granted in a movie), but for those of us who’ve sat through enough pieces of found footage garbage, it can be a real treat to see this level of competence.  And though it may never pay off the way we hope, the film does an admirable job of conveying its increasingly eerie mood as the team struggles to separate entertainment from the “reality” they so fervently seek.

Overall The Houses October Built is a solid, above-average entry in he realm of found footage, though unfortunately it fails to overcome many of the genre’s limitations.  The pacing is a bit off; a strong first act leads to several dead ends and a second act that drags on just a little too long, topped off with a rushed and patchy ending that can’t quite deliver on the film’s premise.  This isn’t a flick that’ll be shooting to the top of any “must watch” lists, but it does give me just a sliver hope that just maybe, someday, somewhere, there’s somebody who’s actually going to be able to churn out a decent found footage film.  And if someone can churn out a decent one, then just maybe someone else will give us a truly great one…one day.

Written by The Cubist