![]() ![]() It’s frequently tongue in cheek, yes, but it takes its terror seriously.įurthermore, Housebound is serious about the ways in which its surly anti-heroine is subtly undermined by most of the people around her and even her situation itself. But for me, the movie is a bit too tense, and a bit too serious, to approach as a parody. What We Do in the Shadows also debuted in 2014, and its ascendence as the reigning New Zealand horror comedy might have both overshadowed Housebound and dictated how audiences approached it. It’s usually billed as a horror comedy or a comedy thriller, but those labels undersell how tense and dark the film gets. Housebound begins like a fairly straightforward ghost story, but then takes a few turns that keep it tonally interesting. It’s tempting to spoil more details - particularly to tell you about all the real-life horror stories upon which Housebound draws its wildest twist - but you should experience the story as it unfolds for yourself. Is Kylie’s house actually haunted by the murder victim’s spirit? Is the horror all in her head? Or is she experiencing terror from a much more corporeal source? With the help of her house arrest officer, Amos, she begins to explore her family secrets, and it doesn’t take long for her to stumble across a big one: the alleged bed and breakfast is actually a former residential asylum, once home to a wayward girl much like herself, whose brutal murder has never been solved. While the house may or may not be teeming with ghosts, it is teeming with secrets - secrets that Kylie is only just now starting to learn. Since she’s come home, things go bump in the night, food goes missing, and a demonic Teddy Ruxpin bear keeps activating itself. But Kylie no longer remembers what she saw all Kylie, who’s been living apart from her family for some time, can say for certain is that the moment she moves back home, strange things start happening. What’s more, she’s certain that Kylie saw it too. ![]() Years ago, she swears that she saw a figure in a sheet. It doesn’t help that Kylie’s mother, played by Rima Te Wiata with pitch-perfect comedic timing and well-meaning befuddlement, has always believed the house is haunted. It’s just a dilapidated former bed and breakfast, or so her mom tells her. An oppressively dark, cluttered, unnavigable wood-paneled disaster, Kylie’s childhood home feels labyrinthine and suffocating, even though it’s hardly the Overlook Hotel. In other words, she’s a walking 2020 mood.Īnd so is the house around her. She’s totally over everything and everyone around her. Morgana O’Reilly is unforgettably and delightfully unlikeable as Kylie: She’s rebellious and sullen, rude, occasionally violent, and perpetually exasperated. Sent back to live with her mother and stepdad in their creepy rural manse, Kylie is fed up with her forced confinement from day one. The action kicks off when our impudent main character, a former addict named Kylie, gets sentenced to eight months of house arrest after a failed attempt to rob an ATM. But once you settle into it, like the spooky house at its center, Housebound is full of surprises. It’s one of those films that takes a while to figure out it’s not immediately clear what the stakes are, how one should watch the movie, or even who to root for. ![]() Their mother is conspicuously missing.Housebound is writer-director Gerard Johnstone’s only feature film, but its unique tone has the confidence of an established, more experienced screenwriter. Richard’s other two children, Ralph (Lukas Rolfe) and Lucia (Hattie Gotobed), project an even stronger sense of menace. The plot in a nutshell: Richard (Tom Goodman-Hill) takes new girlfriend Holly (Aisling Loftus) to meet his kids, only to find the house spooky, dark, and empty – until the ghost-like Anna (Raffiella Chapman) greets them with weird “killer child” vibes. To call the film’s non-ending a letdown would be a disservice to letdowns. Over a very short running time of 71-minutes, writer-director Godwin slowly and somewhat clumsily builds tension, preparing viewers for an insane twist. Sadly, aside from some mildly amusing linguistic quirks, the things we tend to associate with independent British cinema – acerbic humor, mind-bending horror, innovation – are largely absent here. “Up the apples and pears.” That’s British slang for stairs. “Come on then,” the protagonist of Sebastian Godwin’s underwhelming cinematic trip into hell, Homebound, says, urging his offspring to hurry up.
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