The Houses October Built
The House that October Built – “Five friends hit the road to find the best gimmicky Halloween haunted house, but soon a terrifyingly real evil begins to hound their steps.” – Netflix
I wanted to like The Houses October Built. I’ve wanted to watch it for a while because it sounded interesting, then I realized it was yet another found footage movie and I lost interest for months. Finally, tonight I was ready to give it a chance. It’s the first week of October after all and The Houses October Built sounded like a great movie to start of my annual October horror movie, nightly marathon. So with an open mind I logged into my Netflix account and started the show.
It didn’t take long before The Houses October Built began to bore me. The first few minutes we’re hit with some stats about haunted houses and so on. Those stats are mixed in with news footage and interviews with people involved in the haunted house industry. It was interesting and then we’re informed about the the “footage” we’re about see. Still interested. It cuts to a person being thrown into a trunk and it goes down hill from there.
We have to watch this person in the trunk fall in and out of consciousness for maybe a minute and it’s starting to get boring because nothing is happening. Then it does the fade to black kinda thing and I already what’s about to happen. A second later, text fades in with “6 Days Earlier.” Great! I hate that! It’s stupid. Now, I already know this person is going to end up in the trunk. Knowing this is going to happen to this specific person ruins it. It’s not like we didn’t know who the person was. We already pretty much know no one survives or it wouldn’t be a found footage movie. Now, I already know it’s just a matter of time before this person ends up bloody in someone’s trunk. I’m bored and frustrated.
I felt her pain. This is pretty much how I looked watching the movie.
The characters aren’t really interesting, they don’t seem like bad people but none of them were really interesting. And, it’s not too long before some of the characters take part in some douchebaggery. One particularly douchy moment, a couple of the people, we’re supposed to care about, climb up on a roof that over looks the haunted house attraction they’re at. One of them shouts some shit at the crowd with a bullhorn. Were did they get a bullhorn anyways? The movie was full of dumb teen humor. I could tolerate that if there was a teen in the cast. But, no. The cast is all people in their mid to late 20’s if not early 30’s.
There was nothing scary about the movie. At times it was so dark you couldn’t even see anything. That’s almost never scary, it’s just frustrating to watch. Every time you think the movie is finally going to get interesting. It doesn’t. False alarm, just them getting scared at a regular haunted house attraction. And when shit finally starts to happen. The situation is creepy enough that any sane person would have said, “Fuck that!” and gotten the hell out of there.
She was creepy, not gonna lie. She should have been the story.
There were some good things in this bad horror movie. The Houses October Built has some creepy moments but they don’t go anywhere. You know it’s building to something else later in the film and everyone can see except for the idiot characters in the film. There was a lot of creepy looking characters at some of the haunted houses they visited. There was a girl, with a doll face. Fucking creepy! That should have been what the movie was about.
Last but not least, the acting. I thought it was pretty good. Some of the travel scenes seemed a little forced and fake but… it should seem that way a little. This is supposed to be real footage and sometimes moments in life are like that. So I can’t fault for them it. Oh and boobies, there were boobies in it. Not the boobies I wanted to see (I’m talking to you Brandy Schaefer) but there was the required boobies one expects from this type of horror movie.
In conclusion, I’d give it two out of four stars. If you’re easily scared by things jumping out at you. This might make you jump a little. And, if that’s all you’re looking for, check this movie out then. But, if you’re looking for a well thought out story, any depth of character or even any gore, you’re not going to find in “The Houses October Built.”
Cast of Characters:
Brandy Schaefer as Brandy
Zack Andrews as Zack
Bobby Roe as Bobby
Mikey Roe as Mikey
Jeff Larson as Jeff