When an ancient evil relic is found and brought to an American haunted house, you just know bad things are going to happen. Such is the basis for Ryan Little's House of Fears, a horror film that starts out exceeding every expectation only to fall into general horror clichés and generic devices.
The relic, as it is explained, will tap inside the minds of its victims and prey upon their deepest nightmares. So when a group of six friends sneak into the haunted house exhibit a night before the official launch, well, to quote Drowning Pool – "Let the bodies hit the floor!" In perfect horror symmetry, the group of friends consist of three boys and three girls. Two of the girls are half sisters (Corri English and Sandra McCoy) who don't exactly get along. Their relationship is further strained by a male interest (Corey Sevier) who is quasi-seeing one sister, but is willing to give the other one a go. All of this is intended to develop a back story to assist with our attachment to the characters, but in truth, it's just padding to help get the running time up to an 86-minute feature.
After the introduction of the fated six (Alice Greczyn, Eliot Benjamin and Michael J. Pagan round out the cast) we watch as each of them reveal their innermost fear and further observe as their nightmares come to life in the forms of killer clowns (not from outer space, unfortunately), a scarecrow and fears of suffocating and claustrophobia. All their fears are realized inside the already spooky haunted/funhouse which adds quite a bit to the atmosphere of the film.
The script, penned by Stephen A. Lee and John Lyde, is a good idea which falls prey to tired technique. Thoughts of Wishmaster and Waxwork ran through our head in some of the film's better scenes. The Scarecrow and the tall, bald demon character were particularly unnerving and used very effectively in promoting an aura of fear.
But the actions of the characters were just too dumb to keep the momentum built up in any of the action sequences. The six make the usual dumb horror film moves such as splitting up, fighting amongst themselves, shaking when trying to load a gun at an opportune moment and talking about not being able to leave a dead friend behind before trying to save their own skin. Yawn.
We couldn't help but think that just a little help from smarter written characters would have propelled House of Fears into the horror geekdom mainstream. After all, we did jump. We did think the nightmare in the form of the demon, the clown and the scarecrow were scary. And we did think the idea of a funhouse being the setting was a device not used often enough in horror.
But instead of making House of Fears a must-see, it falls into the 'meh – it's alright' category. Which is a shame really.
www.killerreviews.com
The relic, as it is explained, will tap inside the minds of its victims and prey upon their deepest nightmares. So when a group of six friends sneak into the haunted house exhibit a night before the official launch, well, to quote Drowning Pool – "Let the bodies hit the floor!" In perfect horror symmetry, the group of friends consist of three boys and three girls. Two of the girls are half sisters (Corri English and Sandra McCoy) who don't exactly get along. Their relationship is further strained by a male interest (Corey Sevier) who is quasi-seeing one sister, but is willing to give the other one a go. All of this is intended to develop a back story to assist with our attachment to the characters, but in truth, it's just padding to help get the running time up to an 86-minute feature.
After the introduction of the fated six (Alice Greczyn, Eliot Benjamin and Michael J. Pagan round out the cast) we watch as each of them reveal their innermost fear and further observe as their nightmares come to life in the forms of killer clowns (not from outer space, unfortunately), a scarecrow and fears of suffocating and claustrophobia. All their fears are realized inside the already spooky haunted/funhouse which adds quite a bit to the atmosphere of the film.
The script, penned by Stephen A. Lee and John Lyde, is a good idea which falls prey to tired technique. Thoughts of Wishmaster and Waxwork ran through our head in some of the film's better scenes. The Scarecrow and the tall, bald demon character were particularly unnerving and used very effectively in promoting an aura of fear.
But the actions of the characters were just too dumb to keep the momentum built up in any of the action sequences. The six make the usual dumb horror film moves such as splitting up, fighting amongst themselves, shaking when trying to load a gun at an opportune moment and talking about not being able to leave a dead friend behind before trying to save their own skin. Yawn.
We couldn't help but think that just a little help from smarter written characters would have propelled House of Fears into the horror geekdom mainstream. After all, we did jump. We did think the nightmare in the form of the demon, the clown and the scarecrow were scary. And we did think the idea of a funhouse being the setting was a device not used often enough in horror.
But instead of making House of Fears a must-see, it falls into the 'meh – it's alright' category. Which is a shame really.
www.killerreviews.com