The Happy House

This movie had a good story but the acting, lighting, editing, music and direction skills killed it. You could easily tell who had more experience in movie making than the rest. It was humorous at times and it had a taint of Hitchcock in it but not nearly enough. Had the actors been professional or perhaps skillfully directed it may have caught more attention, instead it made it laughable at times and the music was amateur. The house keeper was funny, her character led me to believe she was evil but I was wrong. The movie still had me interested, the tension toward the end kept me alert. It was a good attempt and I feel the cast all learned something from it to enhance their skills toward their next film.

The writer, director, casting director, and actors are all disconnected. The dialog is forced. Every actor in this debacle could not even make it into a senior citizen's life insurance commercial. It's almost as if this was set in an antiquated upper New England play house with very little draw. All, through the movie, you anticipate that there will be a slip of the camera and catch a cue card. Lines are memorized to the point of death. No heart in this, no feeling, and overplayed theatrics. But for the language, minor gore, and sexual innuendos, this plays out like a Mormon independent film. The suspense soundtrack sounds as if the producer let a five year old relative have creative control out of pity. The bad language is also forced. It is as if they took acting cues from the word of the day in Pee Wee's Playhouse. It would be more convincing if at the end, there was a credit that explained that aliens from another planet tried to mimic human life in New England and this was their final product. Plays out like a very bad joke that has been grossly lost in translation. The trilling part of this movie was when it was finally over so that I could honestly review it. Believe me, I tried to like this, I wanted to believe it would get better, but there is no funny, no scary, and has all the trappings of a depressed teenagers attempt at a screenplay. As it hops around with little coherence, the plot is too predictable. Oh, did I mention that the soundtrack sounds as if it was done by a five year old? Has cinema gotten so low?

Since they advertised this film as a "horror comedy" it might have been nice if the film makers had indeed included some horror and some comedy. Unfortunately all we get here is a few half-drawn characters and a sparse handful of horror movie clichés.

Long story short - an annoying New York couple stay at a B&B run by an annoying old woman and her dull son. There they play with their cell phones and tablets, meet a boring Swedish butterfly collector and then play with their electronic toys some more.

Once the "horror" starts, it's really hard to care about the fate of these dullards. But don't worry, they don't seem to care much either. And by the time this excursion into ennui sputters to a halt with all the impact of a wet firecracker, neither do we.

This is a silly little movie, not scary, a little funny, and a bit uneven. It is understandable why the ratings are so low. But I still deserves a lot more love than it was given, even if it maybe didn't reach its potential.

First of all, it goes somewhere rather unexpected, which was a lot of fun. Second, the performances were actually pretty great, even working with what could be very cliché characters; they brought them to life in a way much more realistic than other (even better) films may have done.

But for me, what made this film was the likable nature of the characters. I find it hard to connect with a movie when I don't like the people in it. No such problems here.

If you don't mind something that doesn't quite live up to what it could have been, this is a nice, light watch.

I enjoyed this movie. Perhaps more importantly I still find myself thinking about it. If you are searching for the obvious then I think it is wise to look elsewhere. If not, this little gem is beautifully shot, has amazing sound and a wonderful cast of characters. Although I found the connection between the two leading actors to be wanting the rest of the cast more than makes up for this. The matron mother of the bed and breakfast is great, so too is her overfed and doted on son. And as for the lepidopterist and the sister - I won't spoil that fun here. I do wish there had been a bit more pace but I suspect this was intentional. Overall this movie works for me, precisely because it is so close to what I expected but intelligently, humorously, and knowingly recast. I am not quite sure why but this movie reminds me of the sequence in Blue Velvet when Beaumont finds the ear (and those ants)...