OUR HOUSE
Fantasia 2018 Film Festival Review
By John Pugh
OUR HOUSE is a remake of Matt Osterman‘s praised micro-budget PHASMA EX MACHINA, which played the Fantasia Film Festival a few years ago. Director Anthony Scott Burns and writer Nathan Parker have set out to remake the film, but this time with a bigger budget and some familiar faces. Of course, having an increased budget does not necessarily make a better film; see most Hollywood films for example. As much as I wanted to like this indie Horror film, I have to say I was overall underwhelmed by the execution.
Ethan (Thomas Mann) has a new invention, an apparatus that will hopefully allow him to wirelessly connect devices to electricity. However, before Ethan can finish developing his machine, his parents die in a car accident. Now Ethan must move home and put aside college and his girlfriend to take on the responsibilities of raising his two younger siblings, Matt (Percy Hynes White) and Becca (Kate Moyer). Ethan begins working on the device again and learns that his machine works, but not in the way he had originally believed it would.
I really enjoyed Thomas Mann’s charismatic performance in Sundance’s Award-Winning film, ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL. Unfortunately, in OUR HOUSE Mann plays it too seriously and his grief-stricken portrayal never quite develops due to the barebones plot. White and Moyer’s performances as the younger siblings are exceptional. Notably, in their authenticity of the distress and fear when dealing with the death of their parents and the new ghostly visitors. Nicola Peltz is Ethan’s girlfriend Hannah and she does a fine job. The same cannot be said about Tom (Robert B. Kennedy), Ethan’s sad-sack neighbor, who at times delivers a stiff portrayal of sorrowfulness before playing it over-the-top in a final act.
When the machine is on, the spirits begin to make themselves present. Manipulation ensues upon all the vulnerable characters–which is pretty much everyone outside the girlfriend. The ghost’s primary goal is to increase the machine’s wireless strength so they may have greater power in the living world. Just like wifi, you strengthen that connection and it gives you a greater range to move around the house–and beyond. These ghosts have their moments, but nothing new in terms of scares and gags. The dark apparitions draw a similar appearance to the deadly ghost pirates in John Carpenter‘s THE FOG and the even more recent gruesome ghosts in Ted Geoghegan‘s feature debut, WE ARE STILL HERE.
In the end, OUR HOUSE is a tame addition to the Horror genre. The nearly PG-rated scares and content may turn off some horror fans looking for an edgier and more visceral experience. There are interesting elements to admire about this film; the “Party of Five” storyline where the oldest brother takes on the responsibility of raising his siblings; the accurate portrayal of grief depicted by the children actors; and lastly, the films unique mix of Sci-Fi and the Supernatural. Overall, the film is just too undercooked in the ideas and predictable scares, making this reimagining unnecessary. With that said, Anthony Burns and Nathan Parker showed much potential in tone and pacing and are capable of making a better horror film, but perhaps in a different neighborhood.
You can now rent OUR HOUSE on VOD on all major platforms.
