After watching the recent clown related horror films 31 and Clowntown, a conversation about both of them prompted the
recommendation of checking out another similar production titled The Houses October Built. It is
currently available to watch on Netflix and it is a fairly above average found
footage flick, blending elements of The
Blair Witch Project, Paranormal
Activity, the southern horror subgenre, scary clowns, and haunted houses.
The story involves a group of friends going on a road trip in search of the
scariest and most dangerous haunted house experience, getting far more than what
they were expecting.
The plot is both intriguing and ridiculous all at the same
time. The concept of searching for the scariest haunted house, while also
trying to document true Halloween murders and accidents has potential. It is
the ineptitude and unrealistic decision making of the characters that is questionable,
along with the “Moby Dick” obsession of their friend who staged the whole trip.
The series of weird events that occur would have any rational human being
looking for a way out, as opposed to seeking out a conclusion. So it ends up
playing out in a way that is very similar to the found footage pictures that
have been listed above.
The camerawork is pretty good for the found footage subgenre.
This was all explained in the plot, so there are many variations of cameras and
locations. As with any motion picture that falls in this genre, there are the
typical shaky cam moments and several sequences that are hard to follow because
the camera is moving around so much. There are some creative road traveling
scenes involving cameras that were mounted to an RV.
The acting is decent. The entire main group of actors came off as looking realistic and believable. It was hard to tell how much of the dialogue and situations where scripted and how much of it was improvised. At first I felt sympathetic to what was obviously going to be a tragic ending for them, but by the end I was just rooting for their demise. I’m not sure that was the ultimate intent of the filmmakers, it just felt like they disrespected something and got what they deserved.
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| Clowns argue just like normal people |
It’s not the best horror movie and it’s definitely not the worst, it falls somewhere in the middle. It has humor, nudity, creepy costumed characters, several scares, and an intense ending. Despite lacking a severe amount of gore, this should scare the average horror viewer or terrify your significant other.
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