Friday, October 28, 2016

Trick or Treating at Home? Housebound this All Hallows' Eve


Disclaimer: I thought about trying to make this post about religion & Halloween, but I gave up. Instead, I offer you a good horror story for your celebration of the Day of the Dead:

This year for Halloween I plan on dressing up and eating my weight in candy corn while I give sweets to my neighbor kids. If you, like me, enjoy creepy movies this time of year, add Housebound - a 2014 horror-thriller-slasher-comedy film from New Zealand - to your list.

The premise of Housebound is this: Kylie, a rebellious (and criminal) young woman has committed one too many robberies and she is sentenced to 8 months of dank and dusty house arrest with her mother Miriam and stepfather Graeme in the country. For a city girl with attitude problems,  8 short months with her doting mother and clueless stepdad feels like a boring eternity-worse-than-death.

Not to worry! Soon eerie things start happening in the house that pique Kylie's interest. She overhears Miriam calling in to a radio show to say that her house is haunted; creepy toys seem to follow her around the house on their own; a menacing next-door neighbor must be up to no good. Kylie enlists a the security contractor who oversees her ankle monitor to help her investigate. What follows are bloody, funny, and legitimately scary hijinks.

Like Scream, Housebound has just the right amount of humor and thrills. Like Cabin in the Woods, it riffs on standard horror stories and includes surprising twists. And as the plot unfolds, Housebound stands on its own as a weirdly sweet family comedy.

For fun and fright this Halloween, you'll want to stay in and watch Housebound.

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