House At The End of The Street (2012)

Image Source: Twitchfilm

VERDICT: While it is more of a thriller than a horror movie and provides some heart-pounding here and there, the only thing really going for this movie is its lead, who seems to float over the awful script, poor editing, and mediocre acting from the supporting cast. Jennifer Lawrence, and Elizabeth Shue, to her credit, deserve better than this.

Whew! It's been a busy few weeks. And my brain's tired. So I figure the time is ripe for me to review a movie that was a complete stinker. I haven't done that yet, have I?

My birthday was on the twelfth of February, which my college friends honored with a surprise party they'd been planning since January. I did not clue in at all until they surprised me, so kudos to them. It was a truly wonderful day; one I will remember for a long time. I also was hired by a contractor at oDesk to begin writing articles for whatever they want me to write about, so it's iffy how often I'll be on here.

Directed by Mark Tonderai and written by David Loucka and Jonathan Mostow, House At the End of the Street surrounds teenager Elissa Cassidy (Jennifer Lawrence) and her single mother Sarah (Elizabeth Shue) as they are moving into their new house, hoping to start fresh. Turns out they've moved in to the house next door to another in which a young girl murdered her parents. When Elissa befriends Ryan (Max Thieriot), the son of the deceased parents, she wanders into the folds of a confusing mystery and a horrible, hidden truth that, as Elissa learns, is far from being resolved.

OTHER CAST MEMBERS: Gil Bellows, Nolan Gerard Funk, Allie McDonald, Joy Tanner

I saw this movie purely because Jennifer Lawrence is in it. I will admit I do have a raging girl crush on the woman (I am straight, I promise), but it's mostly due to her acting. Because she's phenomenal. You can't take your eyes off her. So any movie with Jennifer Lawrence in it must be a good movie, right?

Let House At the End of the Street stamp out that myth right now.

I think the thing that got me first was the script, because it was terrible. It sounded like a high-schooler had written it as a last-minute short story project for English class. It was shallow and uncreative. I recall one particular scene where Ryan is going to see Elissa and the neighborhood jerks are like "You tappin' that?" and when he doesn't answer they say "I guess it's official. She will sleep with anyone." I cringed at how poorly placed that was, because it was painfully simplistic and it made absolutely no sense considering what minimal character exposition we had been given of Elissa already. Plus, Elissa is still new in town at this point. Does she already have some kind of reputation? As well as already joining a band within days of moving there? It's like the filmmakers were as bored with these characters as we were. Also, no teenager of this generation starts a conversation with "You tappin' that?" If it was meant to be set in the 2010's, that sure didn't prove it.
As a (screen)writer myself and an avid movie viewer, a bad script is like an insult to my intelligence. If a movie has a good script, it has the ability to make up for a lot of other things that might have fallen short. So setting the basis of the film with a horrible script is strike one with critics and it affects the rest of the film. It won't necessarily bother the audience, unless they're smart. In which case, they'll feel like they're being addressed with condescension because the script is on such an elementary level. There are many people, I'm sad to say, who probably found the shallowness and stupidity of the script to be just at their literacy level. Perhaps even above it. That might be why I continued to see people on my Tumblr who were like "HATES was so amazing omg!" But then, people still say the same of Twilight.

Even Jennifer Lawrence seems to know that she's in a complete garbage dump of a movie.

Image Source: Blogspot

What's frustrating is that the story had potential. It's an interesting take on the normal horror story formula; it begins with your usual psycho kid kind of story before the weird psychological twist that you weren't really expecting. In fact, I managed to get my hands on an early draft of the script some time ago, and the original story was actually better than the one they decided to transfer to the screen. The original story had Elissa discovering the truth and leading the victim involved to safety. Which, honestly, would have been a much better idea than what the final story ended up presenting us with. I won't spoil it for you, but I suppose it isn't even entirely worth it either way. You don't really care about any of the characters at all, so that by the time the "big reveal" comes around, it's not that big a deal. It's actually pretty lame.

"How did my agent ever let me sign on to this movie?"

Image Source: CLCLT

One of the only good things about this movie was Jennifer Lawrence, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a huge fan of hers. She's perfectly in character; so perfectly, in fact, that she seems separate from the entire movie. It's that bad. And what's worse is that they got Elizabeth Shue in on this too, the other great actress who doesn't deserve a movie this awful. They try to work on the mother-daughter problems they have, or at least Sarah does while Elissa consistently acts the daughter-turned-mother role. That subplot is perhaps the best acted, just because it only consists of Lawrence and Shue. The rest of the subplots, ranging from Ryan being bullied by the other teenage boys to Officer Weaver (Bellows) hitting on Sarah from time to time, just fall flat. They aren't well-acted and they have nothing to do with the general plot. Basically, it's enough to bore the pants off of you. It's like the plot kind of meanders around before we start to figure out what part Ryan plays in this supposedly urgent situation that still managed to go unsolved for years and years. And then Elissa does what every smart movie character does with the bad boy and proceeds to hang out with him against her mother's will, beginning a pretty boring romantic subplot. Their chemistry's believable, but it, like everything else, feels lifeless.

Adding face-suck did not help in the slightest.

Image Source: Marienela

So then Elissa gets knocked unconscious and taken down to the basement. Guess her mom was right about her psycho boyfriend, huh? You would think that anyone who lived in that day and age had seen or at least heard about a dozen horror movies similar to that one and would know better than to do the exact same thing that all of the other stupid horror movie characters do that end up getting into sticky situations. At this point, when Elissa is screaming and running around, you're like "Dude, you brought this on yourself," because the scantily clad girl running away from monsters is so overworn it's beginning to look dog-eared.

Now Jennifer Lawrence was a good sport about being in a crappy movie. She saw it all the way through, even praising the director and the script in interviews. She was approached about her second Oscar nomination (for Silver Linings Playbook) on the CCA (Critic's Choice Awards) red carpet, and interviewer Josh Horowitz asked "What was this for, House at the End of the Street?" Jennifer burst out laughing.

I think J-Law can breathe a sigh of relief. Since it was sandwiched between The Hunger Games and Silver Linings Playbook, no one's going to remember that she was even in this movie.

Image Source: Tumblr

If you are bored beyond bored, rent this movie. Or don't.

RATING: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, thematic elements, language, some teen partying and brief drug material

GRADE: D

House At the End of the Street (Trailer)

MORE INFORMATION:

IMDb

Rotten Tomatoes