IFC Midnight: Our House (2018) - Reviewed

Courtesy of IFC Films

 

Despite achieving minor indie success with his second feature Come True as a writer-director and soundtrack composer, the filmmaking career of Canadian auteur Anthony Scott Burns got off to a shaky start with his 2018 ghost horror flick Our House.  A slightly more expensive reimagining of Matt Osterman’s 2010 no-budget indie Phasma Ex Machina (eventually retitled Ghost from the Machine), the film told the story of a somewhat mad scientist who grows obsessed with creating a device to contact the afterlife when his parents die.  Upon tweaking the device, apparitions which he believes to be his dead parents begin to materialize.  However things start to become dangerous as these apparitions are not quite what they seem.
 
A year after this mean lean microbudget indie opened to favorable reviews and comparisons to Shane Carruth’s Primer, Universal Pictures acquired the remake rights with Moon screenwriter attached and Dracula Untold filmmaker Gary Shore slated to direct.  Around 2016 however, Shore left the project and was replaced by then newcomer Anthony Scott Burns.  With Them That Follow actor Thomas Mann cast in the lead as Ethan the film’s young mad scientist in the throes of grief after losing his parents to a car accident, Anthony Scott Burns’ remake Our House on the surface seems to go well but upon further inspection ran into some roadblocks behind the scenes. 

Courtesy of IFC Films

 
Reportedly, Anthony Scott Burns started the remake under the working title Breathing with future Come True collaborators Electric Youth set to score the film.  Due to creative differences in post-production which remain to see the light of day, Electric Youth pulled out of the project and released their work as a soundtrack album called Breathing before Mark Korven took over the music responsibilities.  The score is fine but half of what it could have been had Electric Youth stayed on board.  Given the film’s lack of a cinematographer credit (though its likely Anthony Scott Burns acted as his own DP), one gets the sense Our House became damaged goods on its way from script to screen. 
 
Nevertheless it does show off many of the directorial flourishes that would be put to better more confident use in Come True such as the neon bluish color timing, the youthful cast, old-school nuts and bolts computer parts and machinery, and of course dark shadows with glowing eyes coming at the camera.  Performance wise Thomas Mann and Percy Hynes White have many numerous heated as well as tear filled exchanges and for a little indie these actors give it their all.  

Courtesy of IFC Films

All in all, the big screen debut of Anthony Scott Burns shows enormous promise but feels cut short before ending on an anticlimactic note.  As a standard PG-13 horror flick it mostly does the job but as a fan of the director’s most recent movie coming into it, the film is a disappointing letdown.  Who knows what might have been?

--Andrew Kotwicki