Reviewed by Kevin Scott, MoreHorror.com
House Hunting (2013) Review
Directed by: Eric Hurt
Written by: Eric Hurt
Cast: Marc Singer (Charlie Hays), Art LaFleur (Don Thompson), Hayley DuMond (Susan Hays), Janey Gioiosa (Emmy Hays), Paul McGill (Jason Thompson), Rebekah Kennedy (Hanna)
Moving can be a real pain. Finding that perfect house can be an even bigger inconvenience. Well, if I ever had any sort of informal education from horror movies, I’ve learned two fundamental truths. There’s gonna be trouble if hooking up with a beautiful woman is effortlessly easy, or if you run across a seemingly sweet real estate property at a ridiculously low price. I’ll go a bit further and say that said real estate property is probably going to be a murder house inhabited by a vengeful spirit with some serious emotional baggage. I would almost bet the farm on it.
Speaking of farms, Charlie Hays has stumbled across a really, really nice property as a new potential home for his much younger wife and his teenage daughter. Things haven’t been great between the two most important ladies in his life, and the very affordable price of 70 acres of picturesque farmland and a quaint house could be the key to a fresh start. He’s got some competition with fellow family man, Don Thompson. He, his wife, and teenage son have been struggling with the death of his young daughter. After both families arrive at the open house, the fifty cent tour is provided through a clever “press the button to hear more” type narrative from some dilapidated speakers placed throughout the house.
Things don’t get weird until someone tries to leave. They always end up at the same place that they started. This same thing used to happen to me before GPS, but without any supernatural undertones (I think). Charlie’s car also hits a young waifish girl that has had her tongue cut out on his attempt to leave. If anyone was skeptical about this deal being too good to be true before, this should qualify as a definite deal breaker. They take her back to the house with them. She spends the film expressing worry and terror through soulful eyes about what’s coming, and fits the role perfectly as a harbinger of doom that knows it all, but is powerless to warn anyone.
What happens after that is a clever and well-paced cocktail of the supernatural, and good old fashioned family drama. The plot could have taken a singular direction in having the house magnify all the stuff that was going on in everyone’s family dynamic, and it does that. However, it also goes down a dark back road into ghost story territory. Both elements of the story are blended together so well, that the one sets the other up over and over again.
I’m also really glad to see Marc Singer. I’m a huge “V” and “Beastmaster” fan, and will always remember him for those two 80’s genre gems. I’ve never been able to shake the notion of how much he resembles Kevin Bacon, and how weird it must have been for Lori Singer (his sister, who plays the female lead in “Footloose”) to kiss a dude who looks so much like her brother. Art Lafleur is also a welcome sight. He’s a great character actor who’s been in “Cobra”, the remake of “The Blob”, and countless other films. The cast has the task of pulling out their drama chops to pull of lighting the fuses for all the key horror elements, and they all do a fine job.
I caught a “The Shining” vibe off this one as characters have polite conversations with wicked forces that lead to people running with and ambushing other people with axes. Remember, even though that murder house is priced below market value, you should just keep on riding.