We then go to a young married couple, Marisol and Mike,
who are looking to buy their first house. It’s a sunny day on a suburban
street, in contrast to dark events of the film, and Marisol is determined to
get this house. It’s revealed in the dialogue that the price has dropped enough
that it’s come into their price range. And when they arrive at the house, Mike
comments that the house next door is for sale too.
The real estate agent (Monique Parent) is delightfully
quirky. She says, “You two are just the
cutest couple,” which you might expect any real estate agent to say. But
she follows it with “I just want to jump
right in the sack with the both of you,” which you probably wouldn’t expect
a real estate agent to say. (She’s a hot redhead, so I wouldn’t be opposed were
I in Mike’s position.) When she indicates that all the furniture is include,
Marisol whispers to Mike, “If we buy this
place, all this stuff goes.” It’s interesting that Marisol has already gone
from definitely wanting the house, to using the word “if.” It’s subtle, but shows that she already, perhaps
subconsciously, knows that something is wrong. Mike immediately finds a red
stain on a chair, which stretches believability a bit. The real estate agent
flirts some more in the bedroom. Mike’s reactions and facial expressions are a
bit much; there is nothing subtle about his performance here.
As they go into the basement, we have a flashback to
earlier tenants down there during a big storm, and this is essentially the
first of three short stories that all take place in the house, and particularly
in the basement. (And there are flashbacks within the flashback.) We return to
Marisol and Mike briefly before going into the next story.
The second story is about a man who keeps a woman in a
cage in the basement. She acts as his muse, his audience (he calls her his
partner), as he tortures and murders people. There’s a nice moment where the
psycho has set up a television so the new torture victim can watch some of his
earlier work. What I love is the shot of the girl (Holly Greene) looking over
at the screen. She’s eating, and she looks over at the television like she’s
watching some regular program during dinner. It’s a wonderfully casual, slightly
interested look. She then comments on it, which takes away a bit from the
moment, but is still interesting. I also like that we don’t see what’s on the
screen, only the guy’s reaction. And while we don’t see the horror on the
screen, there are certainly some gruesome shots in this story.
The third story is the family from the opening scene. And
there are some more gruesome shots and some screwed up scenes that should
appeal to horror fans.
This is a good independent, low-budget horror film. Sure,
there is some uneven acting throughout the film, especially in the final scene.
And I have to wonder why all the opening credits are replayed at the end of the
film (perhaps simply to extend the length of the movie). But there is plenty of
good stuff to appeal to horror fans. It’s interesting, because it doesn’t seem
like the house turns good people bad. It’s that awful people are attracted to
this house. The house wants a certain type of person to inhabit it. And that
makes me wonder what the real estate agent’s connection is to it. I wanted a
little more with her, something revealing her relation to it, besides that
simply of her job. They’ve created an interesting character here whose tie to
the house is different from that of other characters, so it seems she could
have been used to better effect.
Special Features
The DVD has a lot of bonus material. Unfortunately, much
of it is pointless and poorly shot.
Q&A Highlight
Reel is footage from Q&A sessions after screenings of the film. This
feature is approximately 103 minutes. The first Q&A is from Denver, and the
sound isn’t that good, and because the panel was in the dark, we see other
footage during it, which is really odd. The second, in Aurora, has a bit more
light, but we still are shown other footage. They talk about two sequels they
want to do. The third is from Elmira, New York. The fourth is in New Brunswick,
New Jersey. The fifth is in Philadelphia, and suddenly the sound is much better
for this Q&A. They talk about reshooting the ending of the film. The next
is in Orlando, Florida, and this one is well lit. That one is really short.
From there, they go to Buffalo, New York.
The bonus material includes the original ending, which is
without a final audio mix. There is also some behind-the-scenes footage, with
brief interviews with crew members and with cast members Monique Parent, Chris
Raab and John Philbin.
Creation Of The
Perfect House RV is four minutes of footage of an RV that they bought and
fixed for their promotional tour. This and On
The Road, which is footage of a meeting regarding promotion of the film and
footage of guys on their laptops, are pointless and not at all interesting.
Buffalo: Countdown
To Facebook Premiere is footage of the cast and crew gathering to watch the
film in celebration of its premiere on Facebook, applauding each other, and
then someone asking the actors if they liked the film. It’s basically a lot of
jerking off, which is only interesting to those involved and possibly their
closest family members. Buffalo: TV Press
begins with video of crew members talking about getting sleep and doing laundry
and catching up on emails and so on (who cares?), but then it becomes
interesting when it turns to footage from a local television program where
Andrea Vahl and Kris Hulbert appeared as guests.
Basement
Walkthrough is pre-production video footage of the basement location.
There are four trailers for the film. In addition to the
regular film trailer, there is a one-minute teaser trailer, an “audience
trailer” (which includes feedback from audience members and quotes from
reviews), and the original spec trailer. It’s interesting to see from the spec
trailer which things they changed when they shot the film, and which they kept
the same.
The Perfect House
was directed by Kris Hulbert and Randy Kent, and is scheduled to be released on
DVD on July 22, 2014 through Wild Eye Releasing.
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