-Review by Nic Brown-

If there was a guide written to help people avoid situations that lead to a horrible death in a horror movie, it might have a section about what not to do when you’re driving through a rural part of the country. Among the pieces of advice would surely be something about not taking that “time saving” country road detour you heard about. Another piece of advice would be not going into the house you find once your car has invariably broken down. However, no one has written such a guide so the characters in director Robby Henson’s film HOUSE are just out of luck.

Jack and Stephanie Stapleton (Reynaldo Rosales and Heidi Dippold) are a couple whose relationship is on the skids. In an effort to save their marriage they are heading to Montgomery for specialized counseling. They become lost and end up following directions from Officer Lawsdale (Michael Madsen). Lawsdale sends them down a small countryside road. Their car hits some scrap metal that happens to be laying in the road and they find themselves stuck. They aren’t the only ones. They find another car abandoned in the same spot.

With night approaching and no other choice, the couple hike back up the road and come across a gothic house that proclaims itself a bed and breakfast. They enter and find Randy (J.P. Davis) and Leslie (Julie Ann Emery), the couple who own the other car. None of them can find the proprietors of the bed and breakfast. Just when they are about to give up, the owner Betty (Leslie Easterbrook) and her two sons Stewart (Bill Moseley) and Pete (Lew Temple) appear.

Betty insists that the group must stay for dinner and possibly the night since their phone service is spotty and they won’t be able to call for help. Strange things begin to happen almost at once as Betty and her boys’ eccentric natures become apparent. They seem to know things about Jack and Stephanie that they shouldn’t and the couple also begin seeing things that shouldn’t be there. But before any of this can be explained, a masked killer shows up outside the house. Betty locks the building down and tells everyone that Tin Man has returned. He wants one body before sunrise or he will kill them all. Now Jack and Stephanie must try to survive the night with a killer playing cat and mouse in a house that is much more than it appears.

Robby Henson’s HOUSE is not what it seems on the surface - much as the house in the film is much more than just a bed and breakfast. It is a prison and maze, that seems designed to confuse and torture those unfortunate enough to be caught in it. Supernatural forces quickly become evident as each of the travelers is brought face to face with something from their past, something dark that they would much rather forget. The ultimate goal of the forces within the house seems not to be to kill the people trapped inside, but rather to make them kill each other. Henson strikes a good balance in the film,  the mundane threat of Tin Man neatly coupled with the supernatural elements that try to push Jack, Stephanie and the others over the edge.

Leslie Easterbrook is particularly creepy in the film. She plays the matriarch of the house in a role reminiscent of her work as Mother Firefly in Rob Zombie’s THE DEVIL’S REJECTS. Rosales and Dippold both bring their own intensity to the film, as the dark secret the couple share is brought to the surface. They must address the issues of blame and guilt that haunt their marriage in a way that no counseling session ever could. Ultimately HOUSE is a supernatural thriller that is reminiscent of an episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE as the characters are forced to deal with not only the darkness that is set against them, but ultimately, the darkness that is within themselves. So check out Robby Henson’s HOUSE and remember, when creepy Michael Madsen police officers recommend that seldom used shortcut through the woods… maybe you should just take the long way to your destination.