House on Willow Street (2017) – Review

<p>So&comma; the other day I was digging around for something to watch and I tripped over the movie <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em>&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s been a while since I&&num;8217&semi;ve seen a possession flick so I decided to give it a go&period; After watching <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em>&comma; I found out that it&&num;8217&semi;s a South African horror that was directed by Alistair Orr&period; Originally the movie&&num;8217&semi;s title was <em>From a House on Willow Street<&sol;em> and had its first showing August 2016 at the London FrightFest Film Festival&period; In March 2017&comma; <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em> was released on the internet &lpar;Amazon&comma; iTunes etc&period;&rpar; and had a limited run in theaters&period; On August 1st&comma; 2017&comma; Shout&excl; Factory released <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em> on Blu-ray&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What&&num;8217&semi;s this possessed title about&quest; For eighty-six-minutes we watch what happens after four individuals &lpar;Hazel&comma; Ade&comma; James&comma; and Mark&rpar; kidnap Katherine&comma; the daughter of a jewelry dealer&period; The plan was simple&colon; kidnap Katherine&comma; make a ransom video&comma; and get paid&period; When no one answers the ransom call&comma; Ade and James return to Katherine&&num;8217&semi;s home to see what&&num;8217&semi;s going on&period; Not seeing any movement in the house&comma; Ade and James go inside to look around&period; Horrified by what they find&comma; Ade and James hurry back to the hideout to tell the others&period; Unfortunately&comma; by the time Ade and James make it back to the hideout&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s too late&period; What ever evil was unleashed in Katherine&&num;8217&semi;s home&&num;8230&semi; is now after them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129029" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129029" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-129029" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;22194617&sol;House-on-Willow-Street-still-1-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"House on Willow Street&comma; Darkside" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"598" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129029" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">House on Willow Street&comma; Darkside<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I&&num;8217&semi;ve got to give it to the writers &lpar;Catherine Blackman&comma; Jonathan Jordaaan &amp&semi; Alastair Orr&rpar;&period; At first I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t sure I was going to like the movie&comma; but its quick pace sucked me in&period; They really don&&num;8217&semi;t waste any time with this one&period; Before you know&comma; it Pandora&&num;8217&semi;s box is open&comma; and everyone is running for their lives&period; In eighty-six-minutes&comma; the writers managed to squeeze in a pretty good storyline&comma; backstory on the characters and antagonist&comma; great visuals&comma; and a whole lot of evil running amok&period; I was totally on board with this movie until the end&comma; and that&&num;8217&semi;s where everything when downhill for me&period; It seemed like the final act of the movie was rushed and summed things up too quickly and conveniently&period; It was like they pulled a play from <em>Thirteen Ghosts &lpar;2001&rpar;<&sol;em>&comma; which would&&num;8217&semi;ve been cool&comma; but <em>House on Willow Street&&num;8217&semi;s<&sol;em> story lacked the build up to cover that kind of ending&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The pace of the movie makes sure no one can get bored while watching it&period; Alastair Orr crammed a lot of entertainment&comma; be it visuals or story&comma; into every scene&period; I liked the way everyone&&num;8217&semi;s backstory was wrapped into the story and I thought it all blended together well&period; I was impressed by how well they were able to build suspenseful scenes with the quick pace of the movie&period; I was expecting the movie to be filled with more jumps scares&period; <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em> could have been a good movie&comma; but the ending seriously brings down the overall film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129030" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129030" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-129030" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;22194755&sol;House-on-Willow-Street-still-2-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"House on Willow Street&comma; Darkside" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"598" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129030" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">House on Willow Street&comma; Darkside<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>As for the cast&comma; some of the faces you&&num;8217&semi;ll see is Sharni Vinson &lpar;<em>You&&num;8217&semi;re Next<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Carlyn Burchell &lpar;<em>Robocop  2014<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Steven Ward &lpar;<em>Angel of the Skies<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Zino Ventura&comma; and Gustav Gerderner &lpar;<em>Blood and Glory<&sol;em>&rpar;&period; I thought everyone did a good job&comma; but I thought Carlyn Burchell did a killer job with the whole being possessed thing&period; Burchell pulled off being super creepy and sometimes even scary&period; What made Burchell stand out to me were a few creepy scenes before we find out she is possessed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em> is unrated but does have language and violence&period; There are not a lot of gory moments&comma; but things definitely get bloody as the movie unfolds&period; The effects look really good&comma; and I&&num;8217&semi;d say the effects were some of the best things the film had going for it&period; The makeup for Katherine&&num;8217&semi;s slow change was seriously cool looking&period; Also&comma; the sets they used helped up the creep factor for the story&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129031" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129031" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-129031" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;22194843&sol;House-on-Willow-Street-still-3-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"House on Willow Street&comma; Darkside" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"598" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129031" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">House on Willow Street&comma; Darkside<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; if you&&num;8217&semi;re hoping for some super cool special features on the Blu-ray&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m afraid you&&num;8217&semi;ll only find some bare bones special-ness&period; The special features for <em>House on Willow Street<&sol;em> are&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Bonus Features<br &sol;>&NewLine;Behind-The-Scenes Featurette<br &sol;>&NewLine;Theatrical Trailer<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s a film I wish I could tell people to check out because it had so much going for it&period; But in the end&&num;8230&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s almost not worth watching&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;