House on Eden

Holy motion sickness, batman. If unsteady camera work makes you ill, skip this movie. I know they were trying to go for "authentic" found-footage, but they erred on the side of far too much shaky-cam running and it got to the point where I was seasick and honestly baffled (and getting increasingly annoyed) by how much time the cameras were out of focus.

Anyways, we watch as a group of ghost-investigating youtube vloggers head towards some little-known abandoned haunted house they NEVER give any background on, but somehow believe will be their biggest break and best video ever. We are then treated to a pretty classic haunted house story, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There are some glaringly odd choices which reveal the budget and the makers' lack of experience/ nuance. Such as the vloggers walking to the 'derelict' house on an obviously-just-mowed-and-maintained trail, and the house being absolutely, immaculately clean, with fresh linens and pristine, well cared for, potted flowers; the artistic flop of having all of the characters use huge, bulky cameras with different resolutions instead of their phones; an inability to get the viewers to like and care for the characters; some plot gaps; and a fumbling of the ending typical for this genre.

But there are some genuinely creepy moments and the acting and editing are better than normal for this kind of movie. If this were just a freebie on Prime or found on a random TV channel with completely unknown actors, people would think it was pretty good. But the 'hollywood' hype and expectation for what is, essentially, a self-produced, amateur movie, are likely leading to many finding it disappointing.

So despite the flaws, this slots in as a solid-enough example of its type and a decent option for someone wanting a low-budget, classic-style haunted house type movie to watch.

Ugh, when the movie started and it dawned on me that this was a 'found garbage' type of movie, I have to admit that my expectations went from slim to none. Sure, I had never even heard about "House on Eden" prior to sitting down to watching it. And had I known that it was a 'found garbage' subgenre of horror movie, I would not even have picked it up. I absolutely loathe this subgenre of horror.

Movies that are written by, directed by and starring the one and same person tends to be questionable affairs. And "House on Eden" was one such movie, and to top it off, it was also a 'found garbage' movie. So yeah, things were definitely not stacked in favor of the movie.

Writer Kris Collins, whom also directed the movie and starred in the movie, put together a pretty straightforward script and storyline. It was somewhat on the generic and stale side, though.

Needless to say that I was, of course, not familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list. The acting performances in the movie were actually fair.

The movie's cover was actually the best thing about the ordeal, and it over-sold the movie by a landslide.

There are far better horror movies out there, even if you enjoy these pointless 'found garbage' type of movies.

My rating of writer and director Kris Collins's 2025 movie "House on Eden" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

....don't do it. The movie has no good reason to exist. Thinking witty banter and charm would get these three through any half baked concept I went to the theater and was gravely disappointed in how pointless the movie could be. It's a ghost hunters/Blair Witch Project mash up with KallMeKris and Celina and Jason yucking it up in the woods. Jason's male gazing Kris with his cam and.....Kris finds a house in the middle of nowhere that appears to be lived in but no one is there so it MUST be haunted.

Nothing of interest happens in the movie. Ghost Hunters, a show I don't even like would be better than this. The movie comes across as having unscripted dialogue for the most part as there is a threadbare plot creeping along. It does come to a wordless, silent, suspense-free head at the end. While I like her comedic short form content, Collins displays no ability for feature narrative work with this movie.

While there may have been a point intended, it is lost on the audience for having to endure the meandering banter back and forth. At least the movie likely cost less than a million to make. I don't think it'll turn a large profit theatrically.

This does not meet the standard of a horror movie. It is not scary and doesn't even seem like it wants to scare, set a creepy tone, or even be an interesting paranormal investigation piece.

Pleasantly surprised. I knew the actors were content creators, but I'd only seen short clips here and there. I liked Kris in the Smosh Reddit episode, so I decided to check out the movie. The acting felt really natural, and I felt like I was along for the ride with 3 friends.

There were three solid jump scares that actually got me good but I do wish we got more background on the setting lore. My biggest issue was the overuse of handheld camera shots at the beginning. The constant motion started to give me a headache so I had to close my eyes.

Still, for a first-time writer and director, this was a fun and impressive debut. You can tell she has some interesting ideas.

I don't understand why people feel the need to repeat the work of others 25 years later and call themselves a writer and a director? It's 2025, it's clearly obvious Kris Collins stumbled upon the Blair Witch Project and decided to put together some lame trash of her own. There's is nothing original here. It's a complete rip off from other found footage style movies, think also, REC or the American version Quarantine. Everything is overacted and unbelievable. The movie shots are abysmal. This isn't 90s and shooting everything with 480i resolution cameras is a cheap way out for a lack of vision in horror story telling. Trying to create tension with out of focus cameras and cheap thudding sounds and a obscure backstory into religion is overplayed. How did this even get greenlit for the big screen is beyond me. I was so happy the movie was short.