Before Friday night, I had only successfully sat through one entire horror flick in my life: Jordan Peele’s Academy Award-winning Get Out (2017). Fully expecting to absolutely dislike Housebound (2014), I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to keep my eyes open for long enough to laugh at the funny scenes and freak out at the jump-scares. I never thought that it would be possible for a horror-comedy film to truly live up to its genre and be both funny and terrifying at the same time! I am particularly impressed by the director’s use of sound effects and background music to set the ominous mood, foreshadow essential plot elements, and generate suspense leading up to particularly climactic, tense moments. Merely hearing the crescendoing orchestral soundtrack caused an intense feeling of dread to build inside me, despite the fact that I turned away from the screen out of fear. I also enjoy how the director manipulated camera angles to trick the audience; for example, his decision to focus the shot on the unidentified shadow in the doorway as the protagonist attempts to evade capture caused me to mistake the creepy neighbour for the harmless step-father. However, I found the irony of Dennis’ character arc to be the greatest highlight of the film: as a psychologist, he is supposed to help people cope with and/or recover from their mental illnesses, although he is the one to eventually lose his mind and embark on a vengeful murdering spree, only to have his head (of all body parts) exploded in the end.
Rose Scholars Fall 2019
Endless possibilities
As someone who found the opening scene from Finding Nemo mildly scarring as a small child, I can fully sympathize with a dislike of horror movies. I’ve seen one horror-comedy movie before, and I admit that I still find the concept quite strange. Still, it seems like there’s a lot that can be done with the genre. Because a lot of horror is so often about surprising the audience (it’s hard to make something scary if it’s entirely anticipated), I’d imagine camera work and music are more noticeable in this genre than almost any other. It sounds like Housebound delivered on these fronts.
I agree on your take of the movie, in terms of camera angle and music. I believe that in this particular movie, it was an important feature that allowed the audience to be at the edge of their seats. Sometimes when the camera showed one perspective, I wanted to know what was going on on the other side, as something else might sneak jump out at us. Also, you mentioned the movie Get Out, which I have seen, and upon comparing them, I realize there is a lot in common between the two films. In both movies, there was an expected twist.