The House at the End of Time
Horror may be the most broadly defined of all film genres. The elements of suspense and terror can be applied to almost any setting, plot or group of characters you can imagine. Great horror films have included a range of themes as diverse as aliens, ghosts, monsters, demons, slashers and cannibals.
For those reasons, it's difficult to get fans to agree on what classifies a film as a horror film as opposed to, for example, a psychological thriller. What is terrifying to one person might be boring to another. To borrow a phrase from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, "I know it when I see it."
"The House at the End of Time" is a horror film, just not the type of horror film you might be expecting, or even the type it appears to be during the first 30 minutes.
A Venezuelan film (with the Spanish title "La casa del fin de los tiempos") starring Ruddy Rodriguez, "The House at the End of Time" is the story of Dulce, who, as a young mother in 1981, is convicted of murdering her husband and son after a night of strange supernatural phenomena. Fast-forward 30 years later and the now elderly and infirm Dulce is given "compassionate release" from prison to live out her final days under house arrest in the same house where she claims mysterious intruders were responsible for the deaths of her family.
The set-up is classic "haunted house" genre material. The scenes initially depicting the events of that night more than live up to expectations: Creepy unexplained sounds, a suspenseful musical score and shadowy figures build the tension superbly, taking the viewer to the nerve-wracking edge before pushing them over in a flurry of frightening, chaotic action. Writer and director Alejandro Hidalgo (making his feature film debut) displays mastery of horror tropes — such as the legitimate jump scare, not the fake-outs that so many lesser horror films rely on — that reminds of James Wan's work on films such as "Insidious" and "The Conjuring."
Upon returning to the scene of that awful night, Dulce begins to see and hear strange things again and is eventually confronted with the shocking truth of what exactly happened 30 years ago. As the film flashes back between 1981 and 2011, the pieces slowly fall into place, and we realize that the finished puzzle doesn't match the picture on the box. Rather than a film about a haunting or demonic possession, we instead see a surprisingly touching psychological thriller about a mother and the sacrifices she must make to protect her loved ones.
I won't spoil the twist here, but its effectiveness is less about novelty and more about outstanding direction and Rodriguez's impressive performance in what amounts to a dual role. In a genre full of stock characters, "The House at the End of Time" is a film of surprising depth and emotion.
So if you're looking for something with lots of gore and CGI effects, you might come away disappointed. But if you enjoy a good supernatural mystery or drama more akin to "The Others," then I recommend you check out "The House at the End of Time."
"The House at the End of Time" is available on DVD beginning Tuesday, November 11. Extras are mostly non-existent; the DVD includes the theatrical trailer and the film is subtitled in English.
Film: 4 Yaps Extras: 1 Yap
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxY_cqwiSZY?rel=0&w=514&h=289]