Sometimes it seems the main beneficiaries of #metoo in Hollywood were white male actors.
Why? Because the villain is always the best role, and since 2015 or so, there have been numerous films that flip the script of the previous 100 years. Instead of presenting a good lucking, charming white dude as the hero, he’s turned into the heavy, and often chews up all the scenery in the process.
I remember thinking this while watching the 2018 feminine rage film “The Perfection.” At this moment, I can’t even recall the female characters, but I still recall the antagonist played by [redacted to avoid spoilers] and the way he oozed delicious, sneering evil.
A version of this plays out in 2022’s “House of Darkness.” Justin Long stars as a man who meets an attractive woman at a bar and escorts her back to her domicile for… well, you know what’s on his mind. He’s not the villain per se, but the assumed predator in his nebbish way. The home is a mansion so drenched in shadows it looks right out of a 1960s Hammer film, and you expect Christopher Lee to round a corner at any second. But if you anticipate rising tension and chases through labyrinthine cellars, well, that’s not what you get.
What you get is Justin Long conducting a lengthy debate steeped in subtext and innuendo with his potential paramour about the new rules of sex. Particularly, about how honest each gender should be during the romantic pursuit.
To tie this into my original point, Long grabs this opportunity to play a nervous guy trying to get laid, and nails it. He stammers, he genuflects, and he lets his emotions flicker across his face just enough. There’s one particular moment where he lets a smile falter that is pure acting magic.
The various female actors aren’t given much to work with. Since their characters are allowed no moral impurities, there’s no tension beneath the surface. It would have been nice to see some doubt, some internal conflict.
The premise and dialogue are thought-provoking. But a lot of the movie falls flat. It takes forever for anything to happen, leaving us with about an hour plus of people just talking. It’s more a P.T. Anderson film than a horror movie.
When the horror arrives, it’s exactly what you were expecting. And then the movie’s over.
It feels like the writer, Neil LaBute, wanted to create an intellectual, social commentary movie but couldn’t get it funded, so he repackaged it as a horror film.
I will say there is one terrific jump scare in the movie.
I don’t think the film deserves its dismal audience Rotten Tomatoes score that currently hovers at 21%, but I kind of get it.
For the right person, “House of Darkness” is worth seeing, but go in expecting more of a curiosity than a satisfying story.
