Movie relies on lead actress’s fan following
The movie industry has presented plenty of horror films that have haunted our lives and made us wet our pants: “The Nightmare on Elm Street” replayed in our dreams, “Halloween” frightened us from going out that time of year and “The Exorcist” made church terrifying.
These days, the horror genre is so lacking in quality that jump-scares and gore are believed to make up for it. “House at the End of the Street” is such a film, except without even good gore or jump-scares.
A brooding teenager and wannabe rocker from Chicago, Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence), moves across the country with her newly divorced mother (Elisabeth Shue). They move into what appears to be the house of their dreams. But as a movie like this would suggest, it isn’t, because there is a secret the town is keeping from them.
When unexplainable things start to happen, Elissa learns a daughter killed her parents in the house next door and disappeared years earlier, leaving the brother Ryan (Max Thieriot) living alone in the house. Her mother advised her to stay away from Ryan, but Elissa forms that kind of teenage relationship that leads to making out on the couch — you know, the kind of steamy, sexual attraction designed to entertain the adolescent audience.
The movie is basically an attempt to get the adolescent “Hunger Games” fans out of high school football games and into the movie theater, especially the fantasy-hungry girls. You’ve got the rebellious teenage girl who goes against her mother’s wishes and a dreamy, emotionally damaged teenage boy, both of which attract girls like a magnet.
Throughout the film, the viewer gets the sense that Ryan was more involved in the incident than he says, which adds a bit of suspense to the film. But then, the film gives us the only thing worth jumping out of our seats for, in a bad way: a plot twist that feels completely ripped from the script to “Psycho.”
Lawrence does her best to make an impression despite the dull and unoriginal script by David Loucka, whose previous films include the nightmarish “Dream House.” But she can’t save herself from a role that’s written to be just another characterless, scream-happy bimbo. Then again, this can be forgiven since the movie was shot back in 2010, a time before Lawrence’s rise to fame. She wouldn’t dare touch a script this bad these days.
But since Lawrence has already gained such a cult following with her “Hunger Games” role, the underage crowd will no doubt sit through this dread and find it terrifying.
There is basically nothing else here for anyone else, even horror fans. For them, watching “House at the End of the Street” is like drinking non-alcohol vodka at a nightclub — why bother?
The film’s Twitter hashtag is #HATES, and it’s perfectly fitting.