A Brilliant Conflict

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Jack and Stephanie (a writer and a singer) drive in Alabama. Jack is driving too fast, and a cop passes him. The cop had gone ahead to block off part of the road next to an accident. Jack runs over some of the cop's cones, so they have a conversation. Jack asks for the quickest way back to the Interstate, and the cop gives them a shortcut. This turns out very badly: there is a car partially blocking the dirt road, and a do-it-yourself spike strip over the rest of the path. So, they are in the middle of nowhere with two flat tires and one spare.Jack and Stephanie find a house with lights on inside, which looks promising. There is a guest register. Randy and Leslie (grad student in psychology, and a real estate developer) are the other involuntary 'guests,' who also ran over the same sharp iron and got flats on their BMW. Shortly after the two couples start exploring, the electricity goes out, and the men go looking for the generator.The owners, Stewart and Betty, plus son Pete, greet them and give them some so-so news, like indifferent telephone service, no likelihood of tow trucks coming in the night, and 20 USD/person to stay the night. Pete does fix the electricity, and Betty sets a nice table.At the dinner, the weirdness starts. The ice is impossibly cold, visions start showing up, the owners are rather menacing. When Leslie tries to leave, a menacing figure shows up at the front lawn. Betty is rather discouraged, and asks them what they did in order to bring forth the Tin Man. Leslie starts reading newspaper clippings glued to a wall, recounting an accident some years past.Betty identifies the figure as the Tin Man. She says that he comes only for the guilty. The Tin Man drops in a tin can with rules on it. They need to deliver a body to the Tin Man by morning, or else he will kill all of them. Stewart and Betty attempt to lock the quartet in the meat locker, but they fight back.So, do any of the protagonists survive? Just who are Stewart, Betty, Pete, and Tin Man, anyway? Do the guilty secrets of the young quartet surface? What secrets are contained in the house? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 7/10 Too dark, with focus a bit too soft.Sound: 5/10 A bit hollow at times. Also, the synchronisation between actors' lips and spoken words is off, giving the impression that the whole thing is dubbed without sub-titles.Acting: 6/10 Not great, but better than in many similar films. Lew Temple, Leslie Easterbrook, Bill Moseley, and Michael Madsen were fine, though Madsen's role was rather short.Screenplay: 5/10 Familiar themes with not much original, though the ending did seem to be borrowed from another genre. The story does move right along.

While driving through a secondary road for a meeting with a marriage counselor in Montgomery, Alabama, the estranged couple Jack Singleton (Reynaldo Rosales) and Stephanie Singleton (Heidi Dippold) ask for directions to a Police Officer (Michael Madsen) but they have a car accident with a metal part left on the road. Jack realizes that his Mustang has two flat tires and they see an abandoned Beamer parked on the road with the head lights on and flat tires.Jack and Steph walks in the rain seeking for help. They see an inn where they meet the businessman and owner of the Beamer, Randy Messsarue (J.P. Davis), and his fiancée Leslie Taylor (Julie Ann Emery). Out of the blue, the weird owners Pete ( Lew Temple), his mother Betty (Leslie Easterbrook) and Stewart (Bill Moseley) welcome the guests and invite them to have dinner. Sooner they are chased by the owner and the maniac The Tin Man and they find that they are trapped in the evil house. Further, for surviving, they lean that they must kill one of them in accordance with The Tin Man's rules. But the mysterious girl Susan (Alana Bale) befriends Jack and advises that if anyone kills, he or she will definitely belong to The Tin Man.The underrated "House" is a surprisingly entertaining horror tale. The creepy story is not a masterpiece, but I was misled believing that it would be another torture film and not a supernatural thriller. Leslie Easterbrook, in the role of Betty, and Lew Temple, in the role of Pete, are very scary and creepy. The plot is not a masterpiece and does not explain well the presence of Susan, but I liked this movie. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Jogos de um Psicopata" ("Games of a Psycopath")

Reynaldo Rosales and Heidi Dippold are an estranged couple heading to a marriage counselor in Montgomery, Alabama, when they take the advice of a police officer(Michael Madsen)in regards to a shortcut(never a good idea by horror movie standards), coming across a metal part in the middle of the road that blows out the front tires. Rosales and Dippold notice, while trekking by foot for help, a car seemingly abandoned on the same road as the one they had the flat and wonder if the occupants are somewhere nearby. They find an old house not far from the road as the rain begins to fall, not to mention, the couple whose car Rosales and Dippold saw, J.P. Davis & Julie Ann Emery. The two couples encounter a family of weirdos inside the house, believing they live there(Leslie Easterbrook, Lew Temple(barely recognizable), and Bill Moseley). At first the family seem somewhat civil, offering supper and shelter, but soon they start rambling on about a dangerous menace known as "The Tin Man" and when he does appear, Easterbrook seals everyone in the house, tensions and heated emotions escalating until the two couples are at odds with the trio--soon characters begin to separate trying to find a way out. But as the four move deeper within the house they encounter horrors from the past which are just as troubling as the crazed family trying to kill them. This is one of those movies where characters revisit sins from the past, dealing with pure evil and stuck in the precarious situation of having to contend with the idea of never leaving "the house", a symbolic version of hell, the "tin man" something like the devil. Rosales and Dippold lost a daughter who drowned in a lake while ice skating, both so wrapped up in their own careers(he a writer, her a wannabe singer) ignoring her and paying a devastating price for it. Emery was the victim of childhood sexual abuse by her uncle. Davis accidentally killed his father, as a child ridiculed by pops for the inability to kill a deer while hunting when he had the animal in his sights. We all know that Rob Zombie veterans, Easterbrook, Temple, and Moseley, were cast for their name recognition, portraying Depression era misfits who terrorize the two couples, while rambling endlessly about how they were responsible for bringing the tin man to the house. It seems the trio want to kill the tin man, but soon they are hunting the two couples and the house seems to function as some sort of limbo where those who are on the cusp of death must each face traumatic events which tormented them in life, Rosales and Dippold have to witness afresh their daughter's death(she appears just out of reach, calling out to them), and the events leading to that awful loss. Davis must endure the incident with his cruel father while Emery is the lust object of Temple(perhaps a reminder of her pedophile uncle), a mentally slow creep who wants her all to himself. Easterbrook unleashes her usual histrionics, wielding an ax, mad eyes, the whole bit. Moseley is a disgruntled and haggard louse, hostile from the moment he appears on screen. Madsen is as enigmatic as ever, and you just know from his first scene that something sinister lies behind his smirk as he gives the couple directions which leads them into a terrifying scenario where survival seems grim. The film also includes a bullet-ridden can containing a directive to the couple, one must die so the others can escape the wrath of the tin man. A mysterious girl named Susan appears to Rosales, obviously dead since her face is white and she has darkened circles under her eyes, perhaps the angel to the tin man's devil, trying to warn the two couples from following down the dark path which would lead to their destruction.

To go away liking this movie... you have to understand that it is more than just a haunted house movie... the house represents something more... it is a personification. It's based from a book "House" which is a Christian thriller... but the book isn't straight forwardly Christian... there is just a lot of undertones and messages and implications... and symbolism... and what not. If you don't understand these things then you may see this movie as pointless movie where people are trapped in a house or something with an unspeakable horror... Then... so you know... the movie really isn't that scary. It is. But on a scale of 1-5 (5 being the highest) i'd say that it is a 2 or 3. It is creepy, the characters are creepy, the feel and look of the movie is different and somewhat creepy... so in other words the atmosphere of the movie is creepy... but the movie isn't so scary that you will have nightmares. Now... the movie isn't the best... but it is still entertaining to watch and especially fun to watch with girls who get scared and jump easily. There are a few spots that will have you jumping... possibly... I read the book so there were no surprises in the movie except for the ending which was changed up a little... but it wasn't disappointing to me that it was a little different. Don't go into it expecting tons of scares and not being able to go around the house by yourself or anything like that. But you can expect a little bit of entertainment and hopefully you will see what the writer of the book and creator of the movie are attempting to get you to see. Some people will watch the movie and completely overlook that this movie offers food for thought or a message to think about... you may not see it if you're not looking... so be sure to look.