So, this hasn't happened before... I was very ill today. I had some sort of bug or food poisoning or something like that where I was all sore and had the chills and whatnot. Not the ideal conditions for watching a movie. But, you do what you gotta do. I looked for something I didn't really care about, since it seemed like that I would be drifting in and out of it. Luckily for me, I picked The Shunned House - I stayed conscious for the whole thing, but the film sort of drifted in and out of itself. Let me explain:
The Shunned House is a sort of loose adaptation of three H.P. Lovecraft stories - "The Shunned House," "The Music of Erich Zann," and "Dreams in the Witchhouse." The film tells these three tales in a very non-linear way - in the "present" day, a couple is investigating an old house with a horrifying past (murders, mutilations, disappearances... all that good stuff). Basically, we are constantly cutting back to scenes from the house's past, which you eventually piece together into these separate stories. It's a discombobulating way to proceed, but it also kind of works. For some reason, equating "Lovecraft" with "Doesn't make sense" works for me. For being (obviously) low budget, The Shunned House gets a good mood going, and I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked.
My Synopsis: Alex is a writer working on a non-fiction book about a boarding house where terrible things have happened over several centuries. He "surprises" his girlfriend Rita - they are going to crash at this abandoned building while he does "research!" What a nice treat! While they are mucking about, we keep flashing back into the house's sordid history, which includes witchcraft, baby murders, time travel, and math. Like I said, what a treat!
Elaborate Genre: Uh - *kind of* an anthology? Otherwise, Indie Haunted House?
Overall: Pretty good if you have an open mind and a willingness to watch really low budget stuff. It isn't really interested in telling a coherent story, but feels faithful to Lovecraft in spirit, if not in story.
The Shunned House is all over the place enough (and I'm lazy enough) that I don't want to get into the particulars about the three stories. Know this - it's decidedly non-linear, there isn't a particularly satisfying conclusion, and it looks pretty bad. I'm not sure if the transfer on Amazon Prime is just bad, but you see how the font on the text in the title screen grab is kind of fuzzy? I think Amazon (or someone) configured the transfer wrong, because the whole thing looks like it's from an old TV that someone zoomed in on. (And, some of the opening credits bleed off the side of the screen.) I feel like it's half Amazon, half the movie being shot on video (?) but at any rate, it's not going to be the best image you've ever seen.
But it works with the sort of dreamlike quality of the film. Everything looks kind of drab in the shitty old building anyways, so you don't feel like you're missing out on any popping colors or anything. The gore is never over the top, but what you get pretty much works in a gnarly, low budget mid-00s way. And plot-wise, the film isn't afraid to go to some dark places. Like Lovecraft's work, it isn't so much about what is seen - it's what you can imagine that makes it work.
So that'll do it for me for today. I was sick, and called off work, so I'll call off for my blog too. I was surprised by how much I liked The Shunned House. Simply put. If you like Lovecraft, and are okay with a very indie and non-linear aesthetic, it's worth a look.
I would pretty much recommend this film.
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