As far as personal histories with a film go, Ti West’s The House of the Devil is one of the more transformative and memorable of mine. I first watched the film one night after hearing some chatter about it on the internet, and to be honest I didn’t really like it too much the first …
Cloaked in hooded robes, hell-bent on destruction and ready to sacrifice innocents to please their master- worshipers of the Devil are an easy bunch to stereotype in popular portrayals. Ranked from worst to best, the extent to which they work with or against cliché and manage to be entertaining on film is profiled in the following list. This …
In Ti West’s The House of the Devil, an earnest college student tries to get rent together by taking on a last minute babysitting job. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue of The Burrowers and The End of Love) willfully ignores the inherent danger in going out to a remote house to provide care for complete strangers. Her clients are incredibly desperate for help but the promise of fast cash is far too enticing for the young woman. Samantha’s job provides a quiet, creeping evil that makes the audience hold its collective breath for a protracted time before the action kicks in. It’s effective in sustaining a lasting dread of harm of the unknown and accomplishes what most movies associated with the Devil fail to do- convince us that followers of Satan and their ultimate goal are a genuine threat without edging into cheesy or overwrought territory that is well-worn.
This Friday horror auteur Ti West will release his latest film in limited release with the found-footage film The Sacrament. I’ve seen the film through VOD, and while it earned its justifiable detractors, I find it a fitting entry into his filmography. With that in mind it’s relevant to look back at some of his …