I Thought You Were Nice

GirlHouse Review

GirlHouse | Repulsive Reviews | Horror Movies

While I love all sub-genres of horror, it’s a pretty safe bet that my favorite of all time is the slasher. I tend to gravitate to them and try to watch as many of the newer ones as I can. I even find some that I enjoy quite a bit (see Last Girl Standing), but I can’t help but hold them up to the standard that was set by the greats from the 1980s. Will there ever be a modern-day slasher that can be held in such esteem as the legendary ones of yesteryear? After watching Jon Knautz and Trevor Matthews’ GirlHouse, I’ve changed my answer to an astounding yes!

After her father’s recent death, Kylie (Ali Corbin, Neighbors) is struggling to pay for her continued tuition. In order to alleviate that burden a bit, she decides to move into a house where her every day actions, both sexual and not-so sexual in nature, are filmed for everyone to see on a live web-cam streaming site. After a site regular, Loverboy (Slaine, The Town), feels humiliated, he tracks the house down and takes out his frustrations on each of Kylie’s helpless housemates.

I’ve been hearing about GirlHouse since its original release, about a year or so ago, but never had the chance to actually sit down and watch it. Well, after waiting much too long, not only have I seen it, but I can say it was certainly worth the wait.

Filled with our favorite slasher tropes — beautiful young women, gratuitous nudity, a masked killer, and plenty of kill-scenes — GirlHouse gets the formula right. Sure, there have been plenty of indie flicks the last few years that have contained all of those elements. The difference is, they did not utilize them as perfectly as co-directors Jon Knautz and Trevor Matthews were able to. And, on top of that, the film looked fantastic, far superior to any other genuine slasher I’ve seen in the past five years, if not longer.

While I was already aware of the acting chops of Boston hip hop artist, Slaine, from his roles in Gone Baby Gone and more prominently, The Town, I was not prepared to watch him as a masked killer. His performance was astounding. Now, you may think it’s easy to be a crazed maniac, wearing a mask, running around killing everyone, but I’ve seen plenty of other performers fail horribly at that seemingly easy feat. Slaine, real name George Carroll, far exceeded my expectations and I am now a bigger fan than I was already. He was not the only one that had a killer performance, however.

With the perfect actor selected for their antagonist, GirlHouse‘s casting director had a big task at hand; Who could play the role of the ‘good guy’ or in this case, the good girl? Enter Ali Cobrin. Not only is she a knock-out, but Cobrin is one of the best ‘final girls’ I’ve ever witnessed on-screen. Her character was smart, sexy, and ready to fight as hard as she could, and she played that role flawlessly.

I would be remiss to not say that the kills in this flick were fun as hell to watch. Loverboy used everything from hammers to saws and each kill was unique enough to keep things interesting. The special effects were top-notch and while the blood was a little too bright, for lack of a better term, it was a small negative in a sea of positives, becoming easily ignorable.

In a genre where we’ve seen killers don everything from hockey masks to owl masks, GirlHouse still managed to introduce a new look for its killer.  With a mask and wig combo reminiscent of the killer from Curtains or even the look sported by dare I say it, Leatherface from The Next Generation, Loverboy was still fresh enough to put a smile on my sick little face, the perfect combination of old-school and new-school.

There have been some pretty good slashers over the years, but none compare to GirlHouse. If you are into the sub-genre as much as I am, do yourself a favor and watch this one immediately. The writing is great, the cast is beyond talented, and the gore is as brutal as you could wish for.

I give this bad-ass flick 4.5 chopped off fingers out of 5.

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