The saga of The House of Sam Raimi seems to have found the rhythm in this second life after the more or less official reboot of 2013. After the change of setting of the acclamato The awakening of the evil of Lee Cronin 2023, the new chapter The house: the swallow of evil brings us back in a rural setting with a southern gothic taste, this time with Sébastien Vanicek to the direction. New unmissable appointment or useless repetition? Let’s find out with the cinema from July 9th.
La casa: il rogo del male – Ogni famiglia ha i suoi demoni
Whoever knows Will and Alice knows that their marriage is all but perfect. The tragic and sudden death of Will in a car accident seems almost a release for Alice, who despite the trauma feels ready to return to France and start again away from her husband. The last obstacle between her and her freedom is to play the part of the widow who hastened for Will’s funeral and the next hours with the family of him in the old and crumbling country house where Alice and Will had celebrated their wedding.
But of course the curse of the dead already possessed snakes in the family, ready to burst into a vortex of homicidal fury with only one goal: to ensure that they are all dead by dawn!
Altra casa, stessa storia
By now the formula we know it: step 1: a group of people arrives in a house or otherwise defined housing unit; step 2: a member of the group is infected by the curse of the Deadites; step 3: ultraviolence.
The rogue of evil decides not to try to innovate this template in any meaningful way, and instead opts for a quantitative strategy: try to do more, always. The action is incessant, the constant restlessness, the rich and frequent jumpscares, and the blood flows dry. This strategy sometimes pays, too often but not.
In forma ma non troppo
The constant action entertains, except when it expires in the repetitive; the gore is juicy, but on a couple of occasions it is too free; and so on. And all this tripudio of enteriora and garden tools used in little canonical manner ends up obscuring a little the brightest elements of the dna of the saga that are still present in The house: the stake of evil. From the remarkable use of sound to, above all, an absurd and almost comic vein that however in this case remains under trace.
It is a pity because the film gives its best not in the outlets but in the moments of family cringes, in the embarrassment of contact with an alien reality that has nothing to do with demonic possession and in an honestly brilliant scene in a crematorium.
It is in these freshness juices that Raimi’s saga shows us that we still have something to give. We hope that even the production team will realize it, because the sequel is already scheduled for 2028..
Il cast
Souheila Yacoub is Alice, a photographer arrived in America for Will’s love (played by George Pullar) who soon discovered the darkest side of her marriage. Hunter Doohan is Joseph, Will’s younger brother, more pavido and less assertive, while Luciane Buchanan plays his fiancée Tia, an outsider who badly endures his family. Tandi Wright and Erroll Shand are Susan and Edgar, Alice’s peculiar father-in-law, while Maude Davey is the busted grandmother Polly, who pulls most of the humour moments of the film.
L’articolo The house: the stake of evil is a competent horror but without verve – The review comes from Dituttounpop.it.
