Welcome back to another dose of Bloody Streaming Roulette. Last week, I was sadly disappointed by the 2015’s The Devil’s Candy. It had so much buzz behind it. But, it was a dreadfully slow film, that broke no new ground and didn’t have much of a payoff at the end. It could’ve been a much better film than it was. Since my review over the past week, I have seen enormous praise for the film in many horror movie fan circles. Basically, what I am getting at boils and ghouls, is that these are just my personal opinions. To hopefully point you in the right direction. Which is why after every LOSER I view, I always say ‘don’t take my word for it’. Just because I didn’t personally like something, doesn’t mean you won’t.
SPIN THAT SHIT!
Housebound (2014)
Set in New Zealand, we follow a young, criminal delinquent named Kylie (Morgan O’Reilly). She is arrested after an ATM robbery attempt that almost literally blew up in her face. Being a repeat offender, instead of sending her straight to jail they decide to put her on house arrest at her parents’ house. After a few weeks at home, which to Kylie is complete torture, she begins to hear strange noises, odd surges in the electricity and breakers randomly shutting off. Later she overhears her mother talking on a radio call-in show. Her mother believes her house is haunted, because of the homes bloody past. Can stir crazy Kylie find what out is haunting the home?
Housebound was a fun flick. It was not a straight forward horror film though. It had mystery elements and at times was pretty fucking funny. Fun situational humor that didn’t take itself too seriously and there was enough of the ‘ol red krovvy to make the horror fiends happy. This is a genre hybrid as I like to call them. A film that can’t be pigeonholed by label. Which is hard to pull off these days. I think the writers did an excellent job juggling all these aspects evenly.
At times, Housebound would feel uneven and lose steam with unnecessary dialogue. But those moments were too few and far between to really piss me off. At other times, I was reminded of classic haunted house films of yesteryear, which is a very good thing. Without giving too much away, the flick felt like a mix between The House on Haunted Hill (1959), Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs (1991) with a dash of Poltergeist (1982).
After last week’s disappointment, a serious film that just really missed the mark with me. It was refreshing to see a light-hearted movie that didn’t try too hard. If you’re in the mood for some spooky and not so serious horror, then look no further than Housebound. It was a badass flick from beginning to horrificly bloody end!
IMDb: 6.8/10
ZombiSurvivor: 7.8/10
Thanks for reading and remember….
STAY SCARED!
-ZS
