Granny's House

Saw this movie at its amazing Hollywood Premiere. Love how creepy it is. More movies should have great Leading Ladies!! Wild how it twists and turns and all is a cool house. Surprising how long the sex scenes are. Glenda Morgan Brown who plays Granny delivers a wonderful performance, with lots of depth. Rachel Alig, the other leading lady who plays Rebbecca gave me the chills. It is great how she commands the screen. Ted is a clueless prick portrayed very well by Les Mahoney. Bill Oberest Jr. has such a strong presence, he rocks his scenes. Very different character played here by Bill, the horror star of this century.

I can't even believe some of these outlandish reviews of an, at BEST, mediocre film. I've seen high school productions more complex than this! To put this film in the same stratosphere as Hitchcock is laughable. Moreover, the "fantastic" camera-work would have achieved better results with a smartphone or dare I say, a Super 8. Not to mention, the 4 1/2 star Amazon Prime reviews from the 15 people (men) who reviewed it, clearly were only aroused by the unbearably awkward soft-core porn scenes. I WILL say, however, the glue or better yet, paste that hardly held this movie together was Glenda Morgan Brown. I happen to thoroughly enjoy indie films. In fact, I mostly prefer them. When you consider some of the BEST (in my opinion) indie films such as "Donnie Darko", "Lost In Translation", and of course "Reservoir Dogs", "At Granny's House" lacks substance and effort.

I really loved the concept behind this indie thriller/horror, but it did have its problems. Firstly the acting is a little stiff and off, and the editing makes that worse. The editing is actually really bad, and the flaws are there to see. Some details they thought about in the film, others it's like they skipped over a few things.

There's also a few pacing issues. The story could be a good one, but it ended up being a mediocre film overall. It also really didn't make sense that the older woman that was being cared for took zero convincing to join in on the murder.

It wasn't truly terrible, but there's a lot of room for improvement.

Rebecca is hired to keep Marion company by her son. Marion resists the idea that she needs help. Rebecca is charming & breaks through her resolve.

She convinces Marion to post on a site that offers free rooms to traveling strangers. Meeting people is fun. Rebecca loves 'collecting' new friends.

Don't be fooled by the acting. The compelling plot & slow onset of dread overcomes all. A twisted dark story. These sweet ladies can't be trusted.

I am not a friend or family member. I gain nothing by this review. I just hate seeing worthy independent cinema slammed.

Before those defending 'Granny's House' flame me for adding another negative review, this review is coming from somebody who did give 'Granny's House' a fair chance, saw the whole thing and with no prejudice towards the concept (which was actually pretty neat) and genre (actually have a high appreciation for it). Not somebody with a bias against indie/low-budget and watched the film wanting to hate it.

'Granny's House' just didn't do it (close to "do anything") for me, sad because it could have been decent and actually wanted it to be. By all means there are far worse films than 'Granny's House', of the genre, of similar budgets and in general, and don't think that it is a 1-star film. It just wasn't a good film either, liked the concept but it was not executed well on the most part at all.

There are positives. The music has some creepiness and fits reasonably well. There are some nice unsettling shots.

Most of the acting is poor, but Glenda Morgan Brown and Rachel Alig give one hundred percent and do provide moments of tension and scares.

Sadly that can't be said for everybody else, with the rest of the acting being emotionless. Bill Oberst Jr doesn't look like his heart was in it and goes through the motions. The worst case was indeed the actor for the son, an abominably wooden performance.

Creepiness only comes in spurts and tension and suspense are next to nil, thanks to a lot of ridiculousness, dull pacing and excessive predictability that there is just no freshness to the material. The story, taken far too seriously, seldom gets off the ground, momentum takes forever, and the dialogue is stilted throughout. The direction is confused and most of the photography is slapdash and will induce nausea.

In summation, weak but could have been much worse. 3/10 Bethany Cox