House of Dust

Beautifully shot ghost story full of spooky moon lit scenes of northeast Connecticut. Recognizing scenes of the wonderful campus of Eastern Connecticut State University is a special treat for Willimantic area fans. Inspired by a real story of cremation remains of patients found at an abandoned asylum for the "mentally insane" this fantasy often gets too close to reality for comfort. A.D. Calvo has a knack for contrasting beauty and horror, both through images and sounds. This is not a movie to watch alone. In the end, the boundaries of mental health and sanity blur as fantasy and reality trade places. As always, questions are answered as new questions remain.

This is a middling horror, without much in the way of scares. Inhaling the 'cremains' of the former patients of a mental asylum, three out of four students find they are possessed by the spirits of the inmates. The fourth, new girl Emma (Inbar Lavi) has to try and save them.

I'm going to be absolutely honest and admit that Gabby (Holland Roden) kept me watching. The others were nowhere near as obnoxious as teens often are in this kind of film, but not hugely interesting either. Emma's telepathic sympathy with the former inmates is a way of getting into the story, but like the creepy lone security guard, that plot line comes to nothing.

A reasonable flick then, without ever approaching greatness. The location is very effective and nicely shot; A. D. Calvo's direction is often very effective, with many moody establishing shots of the various locations - but it never quite lives up to its powerful opening sequence. My score is 5 out of 10.

As far as the haunted house genre of movie, this one was not one of the best in it's field, by far, however there have been much worse. The acting was actually not that bad at all. The actress who plays "Gaby" also has a role on the MTV show Teen Wolf. This is also not the first role for any of the cast, so more or less, they get the job done. While I understand that this was based off something that happened at a real crematorium, I believe they went about explaining everything in a what that was not very believable. I hate the type of movies where the lead characters do plan stupid stuff just to the movie doesn't end. Everyone knows that no one in their right mind would do something "like that" but they always end up doing it anyway. I say, if you're bored, you have nothing to lose. Just don't spend money on it.

A supposed horror story that involves haunted dust. I'm not kidding.......haunted dust from a crematorium. I wonder how they got this bag of spanners Green lit.?

Does it have any good bits? Well, if you had to push me into a corner, I might say that Inbar Lavi is quite charming in the lead role and some of the scenes had me half-anxious but that would be about it.

The premise is the worse bit. Well, that and that he seems to be able to possess anyone at will and make people dream. That and apparently service and maintain a perfectly working crematorium furnace through the years just in case someone knocks over his tea caddy container.

Avoid.

I love anchor bay entertainment! But like most other distribution companies, they run out of money, and I guess "House of dust" is what you get when that occurs..

First off, the story of this movie. Once I got the main idea of the story, a huge face palm was planted on my face. In this case, the story of this movie is clichéd, and has been seen millions, of billions of times before, delivering absolutely nothing new in the sense of entertainment. The so called "Legend" is a massive cliché that has portrayed in many, many other films, as well as the characters, location, etc.

Next, the killer, or foe in this tale. One word, once again, cliché. The killed has been portrayed in many others films! Yet again I say! And in this movie, the killer wasn't even executed all that well, making him seem foolish, and stupid in a way that drags this film deeper then it already is..

Lastly, the cinematography, sound, overall execution, and characters. The characters, or in this case main characters were, like the rest of this movie clichéd. They were a bunch of collage kids that listened to the strong, "better" guy of the group, getting themselves into trouble, and DEATH. The cinematography of the film was shallow. Some shots were flawed, making it look terrible. Some of the lighting, as well made the scenes look dull, and misplaced. Overall depressing - like when it wasn't meant to. Moving along, almost everything of the film was reliant of CGI, and it was horrible looking. They used CGI from fire, to a shattering light bulb. All of which was horrible, misplaced looking. Finally, the sound. Most of the soundtrack didn't fit! Some music sequences sounded like action when noting really was happening, throwing us viewers off track! And concluding, the scares. Horrible! There were none, no tension, thrills, nothing. Once we got anything, thought, it was lame, horrid jump scares! No! In conclusion. This is a bad, bad, bad low budget film that tried to be more then it was, leading in an ultimate downfall! This movie failed from beginning, to end! More money wasted! Stay away from this one, I honestly have no intentions of recommending this to anyone, for it's another uneventful, cliché fest that angers, instead pleasing.