Better Dead… Than Red!

The House Review

The House movie review

If it weren’t for Artsploitation Films, I would never become aware of some very talented filmmakers from around the world. The company is constantly supplying genre fans new releases from all corners of the globe, some that end up becoming instant favorites of mine. Their latest offering is Reinert Kiil’s The House.

The Plot

Two Nazi soldiers and their prisoner are turned around and seemingly lost in the wintry landscape of the Scandinavian mountains. Looking for refuge, they enter the first shelter they come across — a house with hot food on the stove, but no one in sight. They will soon realize that coming to this house was the worst decision they’ve ever made.

My Thoughts

Not knowing anything about Reinert Kiil’s The House, going solely off of the DVD artwork, I was sure I would be getting into another Nazi zombie film. I was certainly right about the Nazis, but the zombie part was off by quite a bit. Instead, what I got was a psychological supernatural horror in the vein of Christopher Smith’s 2009 film, Triangle.

The House was made in 2016 with a modest budget and a small cast. It features a handful of very talented performers, the main contributors being Frederik von Lüttichau and Mats Reinhardt as German soldiers, Fleiss and Kreiner, respectively.

As the story unfolds in this 88 minute feature, Fleiss and Kreiner are driven more and more into a nightmare world that they cannot escape. In this mysterious house, time is not a linear progression. Instead, the soldiers are forced to keep reliving the past, unable to get away from things they never hoped to revisit.

The Verdict

The House is not without its flaws. It is dark and hard to see things clearly at times and being released only on DVD, we will perhaps never know how good things could have really looked. The plot unfolds rather slow at certain points, but rounds itself our rather nicely in the end.

If you are a fan of supernatural films, you should definitely be checking out Kiil’s The House sooner rather than later. The film comes out on DVD from Artsploitation Films on Tuesday, March 5, so pick yourself up a copy.

I give this one 3 broken radios out of 5.

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