Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is just your average college student looking for a job so she can get her own apartment and escape her awful roommate. When she answers a babysitting ad in hopes of making some extra cash, Samantha ends up at a spooky house with a creepy couple on the night of a lunar eclipse... and unknowingly putting herself in horrific danger. The film takes place in the early 80's, and is lovingly shot to capture the feel of that time period; it could easily have been released in the 80's instead of 2009 and you would not be able to tell the difference. Much like the cheesy horror films of that time, though, the movie fails at scaring up any real chills. The story plods along at an excruciating pace, throughout which we see Samantha rudely snooping through the entire house and dancing along to her clunky Walkman. Occasionly, we hear a strange noise or ominous thump from the house, but not much more than that hints at what is to come. Things continue this way for roughly the first three-quarters of the film until Samantha's purpose is finally revealed, and not very satisfactorily. Pulling some elements from "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen" at the last second - but achieving the scares of neither - the ending comes off as pointless and unsatisfying. Without even the kitschy campiness of the 80's horror movies to fall back on, "The House of the Devil" delivers neither the thrills nor the fun.
2 out of 5 stars
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