In the House of Flies

Can't give a review to this because I had to turn it off after 20 minute's. The acting is horrible and from what I can tell it definitely looks like someone watched Saw.

After reading a review from the Hollywood Reporter, I decided to give this film a shot and I am glad I did. The film about two lovers who are kidnapped is a tight knit psychological thriller that delves into the emotional depths of a relationship in a dire situation.

The film is slow in places and once in a while becomes so claustrophobic that you start to get uncomfortable with it. With that being said the film delivers when you do not think it will and for that reason it is highly recommended. The good definitely outweighs bad and any true horror fan will dig the fact it isn't a slasher with ridiculous violence.

It's a Canadian made movie so I didn't expect much, and sure enough I didn't get much.

The couple are boring with a capital B. Nothing in the way of 'captivating' personalities to stir or hold any interest much less care what happens to them.

The female lead is pretty plain in the looks department which makes it even more difficult to sit and endure this whole tedious mess.

The captives don't seem to do much other than comply so where is the thrill in a movie that claims to be a thriller.

I guess the concept is acceptable even though at this point in time it's been done to death only with a little more pizzaz than what this has to offer.

Heather (Lindsay Smith) and Steve (Ryan Kotack) are in love. As they take in the day with a tour of the Niagara Falls region (while Loverboy plays over the assortment of images) they seem like they are on top of the world. And then…..

Drugged, abducted and secured in a solid concrete bunker in the middle of nowhere, Heather and Steve awaken to unfamiliarity of their new setting. Confused and disoriented and with only the smallest of windows to provide them with light, Heather and Steve soon learn that they have been captured as part of a sick diabolical imprisoner who communicates to the couple through a landline phone placed within their cell. As voiced by Henry Rollins, the voice on the other end of the phone will run the pair through challenges and rewards the duo with combinations to cases located within the cell that include items that will keep them alive. But for how long? In the House of Files was directed by Gabriel Carrer whose most notable credit prior to this entry was 2011's If a Tree Falls – a film we were hardly kind to in our review.

But In the House of Flies keeps things simple and the result in a highly recommendable psychological thriller that borrows from more familiar horror films such as Saw and 13 Sins.

We never do find out the motive behind their captors intentions. And that's a good thing. There is no backstory of how they were abused as a child or had a traumatic experience in a basement themselves leading them to a motive that is undeniably malevolent. Sometimes, people are just evil. Plain and simple. And we appreciated how In the House of Flies didn't try too hard to give us a reason why everything was occurring around our protagonists.

The confinement to the concrete bunker allowed for a considerable chilling claustrophobic feel that worked to the film's benefit and audiences will strive for air and sunlight as much as the two central characters as a result of the film's authentic setting.

If we had one thing of the not-so-kind sort to say about In the House of Flies is that it felt like it had been done before. Might not have been done better but the film didn't feel as original as we would have hoped in its attempt to rise so prominently among its peers.

Still, In the House of Files is a good film and you would not be doing yourself a disservice to your watching time allotment if you are able to seek it out and give it a shot.

www.killerreviews.com

IN THE HOUSE OF FLIES is a neat title for an otherwise uninteresting micro-budget Canadian thriller that forgets to be thrilling. The problems with this film are manifest from the outset, as it features two of the most disinteresting characters I can remember seeing in a movie, big or small budget. They're a boring couple who get trapped in a basement and the viewer follows their story from there.

This is a slow, slow, slow film with very little in the way of incident or suspense. The main characters sit around and never try to escape. Instead they simply get dirtier and dirtier and more and more aggressive and tired. There's endless time-wasting here and no story of note, leaving the whole experience an awful bore.