Movie reviews

The House of the Devil makes privacy part of the bargain

Samantha needs an apartment deposit. Her borrowed freedom inside a stranger's house makes Ti West's patient horror especially uncomfortable.

Whimsical Woes editorial ·

Samantha needs money for an apartment deposit. A babysitting job offers a way to buy some independence. The House of the Devil makes that modest wish painfully useful to horror. Before the occult machinery gets moving, somebody wants a door she can close.

A little privacy, borrowed

Jocelin Donahue's headphone dance gives Samantha a brief chance to occupy a stranger's home on her own terms. West told ComingSoon that the script supplied the instruction to dance recklessly; the performance's particular movements came from Donahue. That freedom matters. Her body gets to express an appetite for life beyond the task that brought her here. For a moment, the employee can set the mood.

Samantha enjoys the space while possessing little control over the arrangement that lets her enter it. The promise of future independence requires obedience in the present.

Somebody else's taste

The house's apparent seclusion was constructed. West explained to SlashFilm that neighbors surrounded the Connecticut location, while production designer Jade Healy transformed its interior. Wallpaper and kitchen linoleum belonged to deliberate selections. The setting offers an especially nasty kind of hospitality when its visible comfort reflects somebody else's choices. Samantha can move through a domestic world whose ordinary surfaces tell her very little about its owners.

That is a stronger use of period detail than collecting recognizable accessories. A floor can look thoroughly lived with while remaining unfamiliar to the person crossing it. The decoration gives the room a prior life; it supplies no guarantee that a visitor belongs.

The comforts answer badly

Reassurance also misfires. In his Filmmaker interview, West discusses Samantha finding an unhelpful joke in her friend's recorded telephone greeting and a woman being attacked on television when she tries to relax. Both familiar comforts deliver the wrong thing. A recorded voice cannot adjust to the listener's fear. A screen supplies someone else's trouble when she needs relief from her own.

The limitation follows from that patience. Viewers who want frequent changes of predicament may feel the film keeps charging interest on a threat already obvious from its title. That objection deserves room. A long wait earns its time through attention to Samantha; ominousness alone would leave her stranded as a device.

West told Hammer to Nail that the house exploration also establishes how its rooms connect. That geography gives the delay a practical purpose. We can learn a workplace while Samantha tests the small freedoms it allows her. The film's most persuasive cruelty lies in that overlap. Wanting a home of your own can leave you temporarily dependent on somebody else's rules, right down to where you are allowed to feel comfortable.

Questions from the crypt

Is The House of the Devil actually based on a true story?

Treat it as fiction. In his Filmmaker interview, West explains the opening's claim as a tonal device tied to Satanic Panic. His remarks do not establish a documented crime behind Samantha's story.

Was the house already furnished like that?

West says Jade Healy transformed the interior, with wallpaper and linoleum deliberately chosen for the period. He also describes framing the exterior to conceal nearby neighbors.

Why spend so much time exploring the house?

West told Hammer to Nail that the exploration establishes the rooms' spatial relationships. Those passages also allow Samantha to exist outside immediate plot duties. Whether that time feels involving depends on your interest in her ordinary behavior.

Sources & further reading

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