House On Willow Street (2017)
Matt Boiselle
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Starring Sharni Vinson, Carlyn Burchell, Steven Ward
Directed by Alastair Orr
It always makes sense to have an iron-clad plan in place, especially when concocting some kind of moneymaking scheme – be it a new product you’re pushing, or heading into a new job…hell, even planning the “perfect” kidnapping requires a solid blueprint. House On Willow Street, the latest film from director Alastair Orr (Indigenous), shows exactly what can happen when you don’t do a little research about your captive piggy-bank.
Starring Sharni Vinson, the australian ass-kicker from You’re Next – she plays Hazel, the leader of an unlawful quartet who plan on kidnapping the daughter of a diamond-broker and holding her for a very large ransom. As her compadres Ade (Ward), Mark (Zino Ventura) and James (Gustav Gerdener) fall into position, the abduction goes off fairly smoothly, until it becomes increasingly difficult to contact their hostage’s parents for the ransom request. Oh yeah, I almost forgot – I don’t believe that I mentioned that the lovely young thing chained up in their custody has a bit of a possession problem – the soul of a demon that requires tormented souls in order to survive.
Katherine (Burchell) appears to be oddly docile for just having been snatched from her big ol’ creepy house, and when her demands to be let go are unheard, that’s when the unholy fun begins. Every criminal in this equation has some sort of dark regret in their pasts, and that’s just what Katherine’s new unwanted visitant is planning to feed on. Orr uses a boatload of effective scare tactics to freak out the audience, and while more than a few hit their mark, there’s not a whole lot of groundbreaking material to speak of here. The shortened runtime wasn’t exactly a beneficial element either – it’s not terribly long into the film where we find out exactly what’s going on, and the remainder of the movie works as a cat and mouse chase between all the participants.
Performances between the trio of detainers comes off as a bit cheesy and cliched with their tough-guy (and gal) comments, but it’s Burchell who stands head and shoulders above the crowd – her dead-eyed stare is enough to give you that “oops, I crapped myself” feeling. Overall, House On Willow Street isn’t a waste by any measure – it’s a good flick to run through with the lights off, but I could really only see visiting this particular address for a one-time observation.
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
