Housebound was the perfect mix of horror and comedy. Not meant to be taken too seriously, it has all the elements of a traditional a “supernatural entity haunts an old family home” movie until it doesn’t. The occupants of the house figure out that there is a reclusive hermit moving in their walls and to be quite honest I almost think I would rather have a ghost. That being said, he tries his best to help them stay out of harm’s way the best he can while staying directly in the shadows. Interestingly enough, he doesn’t show until the last 15 to 20 minutes of the movie, but his appearance helps to explain some of the odd goings-on throughout the movie. All in all, it was a great movie and really made my night.

Last week I watched the horror movie Housebound, and it was nothing like I expected. At first it starts out as most supernatural thrillers do, but towards the middle it became apparent that not everything was as it seemed. One thing that stood out to me was the transformation of the main character’s belief in the supernatural. Kylie is portrayed as an individual with a history of substance abuse and potential mental health issues who is placed on house arrest after a failed robbery. At first she is very skeptic of any supernatural beings in her house, but after a series of mysterious events she is convinced the house is haunted. Just as quickly though, she changes her belief that these disturbances are due to a person living in the walls who is playing games with them. Even though the audience knows that she is right about the person in the walls, because of her situation, the psychologist and police think that she is crazy, and they dismiss her claims. This reminded me of my experience volunteering in a psychiatry ward at a hospital. Despite their reasons for being admitted or their actual mental state, many of the patients there were labelled as crazy or delusional because of where they were. At first this may seem appropriate, and for many their clinical diagnosis is accurate, but for some people I was not so sure. It sometimes seemed that a lot of their behavior or beliefs were not taken seriously, and were simply passed off as a product of their mental health issues. Similar to Kylie’s situation, what if they were telling the truth and no one believed them because everyone thought they were crazy? Without going into details, I remember one patient who thought that they were being followed and were on constantly edge, but the hospital staff said that was just because they were diagnosed as delusional and paranoid. Yet, what if this patient had a legitimate concern? Would anyone believe them? I think these are important questions to ask, and I thought this film did a great job of highlighting this issue of mental health, and the dichotomy between sanity and insanity. For instance, everyone believes that  they  are sane, but can anyone ever be truly sure? How do we know we are not insane living in an insane world, where those who are sane are demonized and ostracized?

The movie Housebound was an incredibly interesting movie that made use of typical horror tropes to generate an entertaining twist. In the beginning the movie seems like a typical ghost story movie lead by Kylie, our protagonist under house arrest in her parent’s house. Over time she comes to believe that the movie is haunted due to various disturbances in the house. While the audience is initially lead to believe this narrative, about halfway into the movie it becomes apparent that there are definitely some other factors at play.

They make excellent use of typical horror tropes in the movie. Characters frequently make poor decisions such as, investigating things when they should be getting assistance to investigate further, or explaining things irrationally so nobody believes them, or having the main villain being the least suspicious character. These elements were all used and even made fun of over the course of the movie.

Other interesting details came in the description of the main villain. While also being the least suspicious, he was also a psychologist. It seemed highly improbable that he was the culprit until the very climax of the movie when he finally lashed out at the protagonist. The way he died was also very interesting as he was killed by a meat fork, similar to how he killed previously, and had his head exploded. Overall this movie was very entertaining and I believed it was cool to see the directors make use of these horror tropes.

Upon learning that Housebound was supposed to be a horror film, I was a little anxious that the movie would be too scary for me. I used to like horror films and novels when I was younger, but grew to dislike them as I did not like being frightened by jump scares or have nightmares of ghosts. Luckily, the movie Housebound was not too scary. There weren’t conventional jump scares or any ghosts in the movie. In the movie itself, the character Kylie repeatedly experiences a series of unexplainable events such as encountering a teddy bear multiple times. With this Kylie believes that there is a ghost in the house and the psychologist becomes concerned with what he believes to be possible delusions in both Miriam and Kylie. This got me to question the difference in experiencing the supernatural (if it actually exists) and the similar experiences that may be stimulated in patients with mental/psychological disorders such as schizophrenia. This also got me to place myself in Kylie’s point of view; if I was repeatedly experiencing strange events, I would also suspect ghosts or the supernatural of some kind. Others may not understand and even conclude that I am psychologically troubled or mentally ill. The border really seems to be blurred and I know that at least in the cultural background that I am from, mental conditions are deemed with negative connotations. This led me to think that we, as a society, should work to have a more embracing environment for patients of any kind, including those with mental, psychological problems and try to understand them in an open setting where we all share and try to understand everyone’s unique conditions. 

The 2014 New Zealand film, Housebound, presented a very innovative and amusing combination of comedy and horror. The film’s plot revolves around the family of a troubled Kylie, who has been just placed under house arrest because of a failed ATM-robbing attempt. As she is literally housebound, Kylie struggles with surviving eight months of being stuck at home, while battling her inner (and also external) voices that came to chase her back from her past.

The first half of the film could be considered somewhat of a slow burn, since it focuses on introducing the character relationships and the horror portion of this combined genre. These initial scenes were mostly dark, thrilling, and indeed very scary to non-avid watchers of horror cinematography. The second half of the movie, however, made the experience so much more worth it. The comedic aspects were brought into light as the plot unraveled and the audience discovers that the cause of all the unusual and frightening activity occurring in the house was an actual man living within their walls. This peculiar man, Eugene, despite having a very disturbing (and funny) appearance, did not mean any harm to the family and was just trying to survive within the constraints of his past and antisocial tendencies.

The film’s climax could be considered partially cliché, as the villain turned out to be the psychologist, or the one the audience and characters themselves least expected. The last set of scenes was very gruesome given that violence and blood covered most of the interactions and yet, the comedic elements never really faded and made the repulsiveness of the scenes more bearable. This psychologist-turned-cruel murdered plot twist added more complex ironic elements to the overall message of the story. Everyone considered Kylie to be a very disturbed mind or judged her mother’s superstitions. However, the psychologist who advocated for a clear and peaceful mindset turned out to be the evil, manipulating villain, whose thoughts were both metaphorically and literally blown away.

As someone who does not consider themselves a fan of the horror genre, I found myself fully enjoying this film. The character interactions, constant plot-twists, and comedic elements made it a highly recommendable and very worthwhile experience.

It’s 9:30PM on a Friday night. I’m late to the movie because I was rushing from the homecoming fireworks and laser show at Schoelkopf Field, which I enjoyed very much, to watch a horror movie, which I very much do not enjoy. After watching the movie, Housebound, I can thankfully say that it was not that scary, and I slept okay that night (thank you very much for asking). I was relieved to find that it was a horror-comedy and not just a horror film and that even though it built tension at times in a thematically horror-esque way, it was not that scary. I didn’t even jump or close my eyes once! For any hardcore horror fans out there, this may not be the movie for you. However, I can now say that I have watched a scary movie and wasn’t even scared, and I even laughed at some points. For those of you like me, this is a good movie to watch so that you don’t have to lie about having seen a horror movie anymore.

A compelling film with intertwined themes of emotional and mental origin, Homebound delivers an intense cinematic experience laden with mystery and questionable characters. I found the plot extremely interesting, as the audience is spooked by the unexplained hauntings at the childhood home the main character is residing at for a period of time as punishment for her misdeeds. Furthermore, the film is structured as to place the logical explanation for these happenings on the suspicious and angry neighbor, an assumption that the leading female, Kylie, investigates further. However, her psychiatrist adamantly denies her suspicions, dismissing her concerns as evidence of her disrupted and sickened mental state. Although I did believe Kylie, I concluded that the psychiatrist had clear good intentions and was just an innocent yet arrogant man. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly evident that the neighbor is not actually responsible, and instead the blame is placed upon a man who has been somehow living in their walls for years. Being that Kylie’s mother had purchased the house despite it having amassed various charged of murder throughout the years, I had assumed that this mysterious man had performed all these crimes. As an audience member, I now realize I was making many preconceived notions about certain characters based merely on the fact that they appeared untraditional, such as the man hiding in the house, and thus it was easy to place the blame for these heinous crimes on them. However, this unknown man actually had been sympathizing with Kylie her entire childhood, and had observed her difficult dynamic with her mother, dictating it in pictures he had crafted out of emotional regard for his host family. Furthermore, I was utterly surprised to discover that the culprit was the psychiatrist, who had seemingly been attempting to help Kylie throughout this process. Additionally, in hindsight, it is significant that his career serves to understand the workings of the human brain, while he actually used this knowledge to manipulate those around him. As I’ve certainly learned through the plot of this film, preconceived notions are dangerous yet powerful, and should be circumvented as much as possible

“Housebound” was definitely not what I expected it to be. The last third of the movie was actually a lot better than the first two thirds. Spoiler alert: The movie is about a girl with anger issues who gets put under house arrest after trying to rob an atm. The house appears at first to be haunted, but then it gets revealed that there is a benign man living in the walls of the house. All of this is connected to a murder that occurred over a decade ago in that house, though it comes to be shown that it is not the deceased’s spirit is not the problem. 

There’s an interesting theme of being trapped throughout the film. Of course, Kylie is trapped in the house because of her house arrest. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend are trapped with a verbally (and sometimes physically) abusive daughter. The man inside the walls is trapped because he’s afraid of what will happen if he leaves. The predicted murderer is trapped because of the way he is perceived and other bad things (not murder) that he’s done in the past. The police are trapped in their own arrogance and occasional stupidity. Everyone is trapped somehow and it doesn’t help that there is a sense of claustrophobia throughout the movie that is propagated by the cluttered-ness of several settings. 

The only thing that sets all of these characters free is the eventual demise of the true murderer. The best way to fix a problem is to go to the root. The movie made me really think about ways that I, myself, might be trapped in my life and I feel obligated to discover the cause of my own confinement. 

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.

Housebound was a movie that kept you at the edge of your seat. Some twists and turns were unexpected, allowing me to feel the tension in the room. Once in a while, I heard gasps in the room. By paying attention closely, you noticed that the events leading up to a twist had slight changes in the tone of the music in the background, as well as the angle of the camera. Sometimes the music signified that there were changes to the storyline. In terms of the angles in which the scene was filmed, the camera would avoid the corner in which the supernatural activity would occur. In one instance, the lights went out, and someone was standing in a corner, following that someone was harmed. Besides it being a horror movie, there were times were subtle jokes were included. It lightened the tone of the film, as well as allowed the viewers to get a better understanding of the characteristics of the actors. Overall the movie had lots of unexpected outcomes, and it was a great experience to share the thrill with the other residents of Rose.