Burned by his experience on Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, director Ti West threw caution to the wind and set out to make a low budget, slowly-paced movie with a retro look, and to hell with what anyone else thought. His singlemindedness paid off because House Of The Devil is one of his best films, a return to the days when horror movies were about anticipation rather than instant gratification. Shot on 16mm, and set in 1983, the movie manages to do something new with that hoariest of horror clichés, the terrified babysitter, but to reveal any more of the plot would be unthinkable. This is the kind of film that separates the adolescent boys from the men - viewers that arent willing to go along with the deliberate pacing should really stick to movies about sparkly vampires.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
