HOUSE OF GOOD AND EVIL (2013)

Studio:       Phase 4 Films
Director:    David Mun
Writer:       Blu de Golyer
Producer:  Blu de Golyer, Mark Rickard, Christian Oliver
Stars:     Rachel Marie Lewis, Christian Oliver, Jordan Rhodes, Marietta Marich, Rob Neukirch

Review Score:

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Summary:

To repair their marriage, a young couple moves to an isolated home where the wife begins a slow descent into madness.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Chris Conley argues with his pregnant wife Maggie and their confrontation turns physical. Maggie suffers a miscarriage as Chris drives her to the hospital afterwards.

Some time later, the Conleys decide to work on their marriage by escaping the congested city and relocating to a secluded country home. Realtor Rob Bradley shows the house to the couple. Bradley explains that their new home does not have a phone or electricity, although it does have a gas generator. The home is also part of a duplex. The other side is occupied by an elderly couple named the Andersons that Bradley has never actually met.

While Chris goes to his job as a firefighter, Maggie works around the house. She believes she hears a phone ringing on the other side of the wall shared with the Andersons. Chris later explains that there is no phone line connected to the house, upsetting Maggie that her husband does not believe her.

Chris and Maggie continue working through their tensions, although Chris is gone often, claiming that the department has him working on a nearby fire. Maggie hears the phone ringing again while she is alone and sees strange things related to the Andersons. She wonders if what she sees and hears is really happening or if she may be losing her mind.

In an attempt to meet the neighbors, Maggie bakes a blueberry pie and leaves it in front of the Anderson’s door. Maggie returns home later to find the pie gone from the porch. She meets Dale Anderson that night when the mysterious old man helps her start the generator.

Still frustrated by the phone and by Mrs. Anderson’s refusal to answer the door, Maggie breaks into the old woman’s side of the home. Maggie discovers that Mrs. Anderson is hard of hearing, although Mrs. Anderson is pleased to have Maggie’s company. Strangely, Maggie comes to realize that the Andersons have lived a life similar to hers and Chris’. Maggie is frightened at the prospect of seeing what her life could become.

Maggie’s frustration continues building. Chris strikes her after another confrontation. The next day, Maggie and Mrs. Anderson take a walk together. Maggie sees a bruise on Mrs. Anderson’s face and learns that Dale abuses the old woman in a manner similar to the way that Chris treats her.

Her determination renewed, Maggie returns home and confronts her husband. Their physical altercation causes Dale Anderson to become involved. Dale goads Chris into attacking him and he then stabs Chris. Maggie kills Dale Anderson with an ax. After Chris dies, Maggie takes the ax into the other side of the house and attacks Mrs. Anderson.

Rob Bradley arrives at the house to drop off a key and discovers Maggie lying in the bedroom atop her dead husband. It is revealed that Maggie actually killed Chris shortly after Bradley first showed them the house and the subsequent events were all imagined in Maggie’s head. While the police cordon off the house as a crime scene, the real Andersons arrive home after having spent the preceding two weeks in Florida. Maggie is taken away in an ambulance and she imagines that she sees her husband Chris sitting alongside her gurney.

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Review:

“House of Good and Evil” is a psychological thriller about one woman’s slow descent into madness that emphasizes the slow while forgetting about the thriller.  Meanwhile, the audience begins a descent of their own, although theirs is into narcolepsy.  In this case, madness would be preferable, as at least something of interest would be taking place.

Chris Conley is a louse of a husband, seeing as how the first thing he is seen doing is beating his wife, albeit in suggested silhouette.  That earns pregnant spouse Maggie some sympathy when she subsequently suffers a miscarriage, though she promptly hands it right back by opting to work things out with her abusive beau instead of dropping him like a hot rock.  The couple does what all people looking to be the center of a horror film do, and that is they move to a secluded country home without a phone or electricity, but with a mysterious locked door and strange neighbors that no one has ever seen.  It is little surprise that “House of Good and Evil” began life as a 2008 short because what follows in the feature version is five minutes of routine horror story and one hour and forty minutes of filler.

A passion project for writer/producer Blu de Golyer, “House of Good and Evil” may have a more interesting story behind the lens than it does in front of it.  Hollywood heavyweight Ron Howard’s younger brother Clint was originally slated to sit in the canvas-backed chair for his directorial debut.  Another previous attachment that did not pan out was one-time Hitchcock It Girl Tippi Hedren’s planned appearance in a supporting role.  Pleasantly surprising is the fact that the disappointment over Hedren’s absence is quickly forgotten thanks to a nicely understated performance by Marietta Marich in her place, although it is a small plus negated by a hard to ignore minus sign.

Rachel Marie Lewis stars as Maggie in what is essentially a one-woman show.  Until the finale, Maggie features in every single scene, the majority of which are simply she by her lonesome wondering if her mind is cracking or if something else is going on in her isolated new house.  Lewis is very good in her role, all of the actors are capable of carrying the movie in fact, but their reliable performances have their legs cut from under them by a script characterizing everyone flatly while losing a race against a turtle in the pacing department.

In one scene, Maggie takes a leisurely bike ride to the one spot in the woods where her cell phone has reception for a planned daily check-in with her husband.  On the way, the phone falls from Maggie’s sweater pocket.  She arrives at her destination, realizes her pocket is empty, worries momentarily, and then retraces her steps to find the phone lying only a few feet away.  Perhaps the scene was supposed to more clearly suggest that the incident caused her to miss the scheduled call, but it reads as so pointless that it is a wonder why it was necessary as all.

It is this modus operandi of continuously unnecessary staging that drags everything initially promising about “House of Good and Evil” through a tar pit of tedium and monotony.  Cinematography is crisp and competent, but like the actors trapped inside dull personalities, the visual look is caught framing a drab, white-walled setting that has no chance of rewarding professionalism on the technical side.  “House of Good and Evil” is so boring in terms of its people, its singular building location, and its laboriously circular path to telling a straight line story that earnest efforts by cast and crew are ultimately futile in service to a screenplay with more empty scenes than scares.

A liberal application of scissors in the editing room and a more present soundtrack to pull the thread tighter might have made a difference.  Even then, the story is too minimal and too uninteresting to ever have a real crack at breaking out.  Hints of talent can be seen here and there that might have commanded attention had the material been beefier, but “House of Good and Evil” is simply too lackluster for it to even matter in the end.

Review Score:  30

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