'The House October Built' (2014) Review


 For my third film of my Halloween Marathon, I watched ‘The House October Built’, a found footage style horror film from 2014. This movie feeds on the fear about the actors that work at haunted houses around Halloween. For some, haunted house attractions are a good way to catch a thrill without actually being in danger. There is comfort in knowing the props are fake and legally no one can actually hurt you. Interestingly enough, there is a whole community of people, like the ones in this film, who like to push their limits and prefer a more extreme, near death experience. Throughout the movie, a group of characters visit different haunted house attractions all leading up to the big “Blue Skeleton'', which is a supposedly an exclusive underground horror festival that offers a unique horrifying experience. 

    The most creative part of this film was that the attractions they visited throughout this film are all real, and the interviews with the workers are authentic (making THAT scene even more terrifying). This aspect of ‘The House October Built’ is what separates this horror film from others and gives you the unsettling truth about a favorite fall tradition. While the movie brings to light the truth about how little background checks and safety measures are looked into when creating your favorite halloween haunted houses, it also gives you a headache with the stupid decisions the main characters continuously make. I understand that these characters had no choice but to be dumb in order to progress the story, but there really wasn’t any redeemable factors about any of the cast. I had a hard time liking anyone due to their selfish decisions and need to continue their journey despite the thousands of red flags standing in their way. The acting was solid for what it was, but also lacked a lot of context clues to explain any relationship between anyone. Apparently some of them had dated? Some were related? I still wouldn't know even after my first watch. 

 As for the editing, when the crew finally reached “Blue Skeleton'', I was interested to see what was going to happen because of all the anticipation. Yet, due to its editing style, we only see a dark, shaky camera mixed with screaming and yelling. This was a disappointing buildup to the climax of the film that could have done more with all that tension. 

  
     This film has launched a franchise since its initial release in 2014 and has a following from people who enjoy the realistic video found footage. If you enjoy movies like ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘As Above So Below’ or ‘REC’, I would recommend you to watch this movie. I give this one 2 stars out of 5 because of the interesting mix of real interactions and acting. With that being said, I’m still not a huge fan of the distractingly annoying characters and the creative choice to leave too much up to the imagination.

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